Because horse owners love their horses so much, it makes sense that they want to share all of their foods and snacks that they like to their horses.
However, some snacks should not be fed to horses because the snacks are terrible for them. You should not feed Oreos to your horse.
Can Horses Eat Oreos?
Although they are tiny cookies compared to the size of a horse, you should not feed your horse Oreos. There are many other snacks that you can feed your horse that is far more friendly to their digestive system than Oreos. Many stores that cater to horses also have horse approved cookies you can feed them.
Why Can’t Horses Eat Oreos?
Horses cannot eat Oreos for three main reasons. The first reason is that Oreos contain sugar, which horses cannot eat a lot of. The second reason that horses cannot eat Oreos is that the cookie part of the Oreo includes chocolate. Horses are like dogs; they should not consume chocolate in any amount, even a small one.
The third and final reason is that Oreos are very processed. There are many foods that humans and horses can consume, but processed food is not something that a horse’s digestive system was designed to handle. There are many preservatives and stabilizers in Oreos and cookies in general, that will cause a horse to have diarrhea and gas.
What Happens if Horses Overeat Sugar?
The vast majority of a horse’s diet is hay and grass. These are very fiber-rich foods that have practically no sugar in them. Horses were not designed to eat a lot of sugar. If they do consume sugar, it is usually in the form of fruit, and the fiber in the fruit helps stabilize the absorption of sugar. If a horse eats sugar-filled food like Oreos, it can develop several diseases sugar-related diseases. Those diseases are insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes,
If their insulin resistance goes untreated for a while, they can also develop foundering.
You may be surprised to hear that horses cannot handle a lot of sugar, because we have all seen in the media and shows people giving horses sugar cubes to snack on. But sugar in any form can be detrimental to a horse’s health. Even sugar cubes are not that healthy, and horse owners are warned not to give them more than a few cubes a month.
What Happens if They Eat Chocolate?
When a horse eats chocolate, it is affected by two primary ingredients in the chocolate. One of the ingredients is theobromine. You may know this ingredient from having dogs. Much like dogs, horses cannot eat theobromine as it will cause severe gastrointestinal problems.
The second ingredient horses cannot eat is caffeine. Horses’ digestive systems were not built to digest and regulate caffeine. Even racehorses are not allowed to have caffeine in their system.
The Proper Diet of a Horse
There are four primary rules you need to follow when you plan your horse’s diet.
The most important rule you must know is that horses need hay or pasture to munch on all day long. Their bodies were built to eat many small meals throughout the day, and many of those small meals will be just them chewing on hay. If there is not enough hay in the area, that is when you add grains to their diet. But if there is enough hay, you can leave the grains out altogether.
The second rule you must follow is that you must feed your horses according to their weight. If your horse has a thousand pounds, they will eat about 20 pounds of hay a day. It is best to ask the horse veterinarian how much grass should eat.
The third rule is that you should not feed your horse right before or right after exercising. If you fill-up the horse’s stomach with food, there’s less room for their lungs to expand, which will cause shortness of breath.
The fourth and final rule because is about water. Because of how large horses are, and how much fiber they eat, they will need to be given at least 10 gallons of water per day. This amount must be increased if they exercise daily.
Horse Safe Snacks
As we stated before, fruits are the most common snack for horses to eat. Horses have always eaten fruits, whether they are wild or domesticated. The most common snack of the horse is the apple. You probably knew that already because of many TV shows and movies show farmers feeding their horses apples. But there is a wide variety of fruit snacks that you can shower your horse with. these fruits are:
- Strawberries
- Melon
- Cantaloupe
- Raisins
- Grapes
- Bananas
How to Feed Your Horse a Snack
Don’t forget that whenever you feed your horse, always lay the food flat on your hand. Your horse does not know the strength of its jaw, and it can easily bite off one of your fingers when it goes in and starts licking the fruit in your hand. If you are too nervous about feeding them directly from your hand, place the snack anywhere near their head or place it in their feed bucket.
If you choose to feed your horse by hand, the best way to do this is to press your snack up into the horse’s mouth. You can also gently throw the snack up into the air near the horse because their hand-eye-mouth coordination is top-notch. Just do not throw the snack directly at the horse’s face.
Conclusion
- Horses cannot eat Oreos at all
- There are several ingredients in Oreos that will cause intestinal distress, like diarrhea and gas
- Horses cannot eat sugar because their bodies cannot handle too much sugar, and they also were not built to digest processed sugar.
- If a horse regularly overeats sugar, then they can get insulin resistance.
- If their insolence resistance goes untreated for too long, then they can also develop type 2 diabetes.
- Horses also cannot eat chocolate because their bodies cannot handle theobromine, which is a chemical found in chocolate.
- When the theobromine hits their digestive system, they
- If you want to feed your horse a snack, you must lie your hand out completely flat, to prevent their teeth from biting off one of your fingers.
