Homemade Treats For Your Horse {How To Make Them}

Horse treats can be expensive, and if the truth be known, they are really not necessary. Even so, it can be fun to give your horse a treat from time to time. In this article, we share several simple recipes for making your own horse treats at home. We also share good advice on choosing plain, common foods that can make excellent horse treats. Read on to learn more about best horse treats and homemade horse treats.

Quick And Easy Homemade Horse Treats

Combine:

• Half a cup of whole wheat flour
• A quarter of a cup of molasses
• A cup of applesauce
• Two grated carrots
• 3 cups of oatmeal

Mix the ingredients together to form a substance that will hold together. You should be able to squeeze a handful of the mix into a ball.

Preheat your oven to 350°F. While it’s heating, form your mixture into bite sized (for a horse) balls and place them on a greased cookie sheet. Sides can be touching.

Bake your cookies for 15 minutes or until firm and dry. Allow them to cool thoroughly, and store them in an airtight container in your refrigerator.

For a variation on this recipe, you can substitute a cup of grated apple for half of the carrot. You can also use honey instead of molasses. If you’re going to use molasses, be sure to use genuine, old-fashioned blackstrap molasses.

This type of molasses has more nutrition and is not as sweet as products such as pancake syrup or even sorghum molasses.

No-Bake Peanut Butter Horse Cookies

Combine:

• Three quarters of a cup of unsweetened granola or unsweetened puffed wheat
• A quarter of a cup of apple chips or other fruit chips broken into little pieces
• Three quarters of a cup of water or apple juice
• Half a cup of peanut butter
• A cup of oatmeal

Mix the ingredients together thoroughly adding more liquid or more oatmeal as needed to create a mixture that will hold together well.

Drop the mixture by rounded tablespoons full onto waxed paper. Place in the refrigerator to firm up. Store these treats in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Healthy Flax and Coconut Treats

Combine:

• 3 tablespoons full of melted coconut oil
• Three quarters of a cup of flax meal (flax could be replaced by chia seeds)
• A cup of whole-wheat flour
• A half a cup of molasses
• Warm water as needed
• A cup of oatmeal

Mix all of the dry ingredients together, melt the coconut oil and stir it and warm water as needed into the dry ingredients to form a smooth dough.

Measure by tablespoons full onto greased cookie sheet and bake at 350°F for 15 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool thoroughly and store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Be Sure To Refrigerate!

It’s important to keep all of these concoctions well refrigerated because they do contain perishable fresh ingredients (carrots, apples, applesauce).

All of these ingredients will become moldy if you keep these treats at room temperature. Don’t make up huge batches unless you plan to freeze them and just thaw out a few at a time.

If your horse is sensitive to sugar or tends to have laminitis problems, you don’t want to feed him treats that contain sugar, molasses or honey. In this case, it’s better to feed all natural treats such as:

• Chunks of carrot
• Plain popcorn
• Apple slices
• Berries
• Squash
• Melon

For more information about feeding fruit to horses, see our article: What Fruits and Veggies Can Horses Eat?

Is It Good To Feed Treats?

Feeding treats out of hand can lead to problems with nipping. If you are going to feed treats, it’s best to simply set them in your horse’s feed dish at his regular feeding time.

For the most part, feeding treats is probably more important to you than to your horse. Of course horses like getting a treat, but most horses are really perfectly happy with access to plenty of fresh grass, good quality hay and appropriate feed for their age and activity level.

If you are going to feed your horse treats, be sure they are healthy, natural and low in sugar.

SmartPak’s Super Easy Holiday Horse Treats Recipe

Frequently Asked Questions