[Wayside]

My mares are rather fussy about treats, but what I always find really amusing is that my older mare will generally slowly and daintily eat one treat of a kind she's not fond of, and then refuse the rest. Like it's some kind of poorly prepared food at a dinner party - "Yes, dear. That dish was lovely. I didn't notice the charred bits at all, but I am simply too stuffed to eat another bite."

[billiebob]

My horse loves banana flavored Rounders but will not touch a real banana. As far as people food goes, he really only likes carrots, apples and the occasional pear. It's not for lack of offering on my part--I willingly share my food with the horses. The lesson ponies now have an affinity for whole grain bread, white chocolate peppermint pretzels, and cheddar-sour cream potato chips.

One also likes to drink Wawa's french vanilla cappuccino (the kind from the machine) out of a coffee cup. That one was not my doing seeing as I drink real coffee with milk and just a little bit of sugar......which said schoolie tried once and didn't like very much. I made it up to her by giving her the frosting off my pumpkin scone that morning.

ETA had to giggle at the fancy German treats post. I bought some banana-flavored German treats at Dressage at Devon one year and my horse hated those. Wanted his cheapo Amurrrrrican treats, no highbrow food for him!

[flowersmom2]

I was leading my horse, munching grapes. He gave me "the look". Let him try one and ended up doing the "one for you, one for me" all the way to the pasture. They were red grapes. Offered him green ones - not interested.

[big_red_ottb]

My horse is a weirdo....he won't touch anything apple flavored. Not even if apple is one of many horsey friendly ingredients. Just absolutely not. He'll take one taste and spit it out, and he won't even go near an actual apple.

BUT, he loves carrots, butterscotch, molasses, peppermint, pumpkin, gingerbread (!!), and his faaavorites are these wild-berry flavored cookies the local feed store makes. So he's just a weirdo.

[War Admiral]

HRH Avery was picky about treats. It took me years, but I finally figured out what the common ground was among the things he wouldn't eat, which were sugar lumps, pears, and peeps: he must have had very sensitive teeth and could not stand anything that felt "gritty" in his mouth!

[Cabaret SK]

The only things my horse has ever refused are pieces of watermelon, and pretzels. I almost wish he was a bit pickier - he loves food a bit too much.

[StGermain]

I feed my horses cheap discount store cookies - generic fig and apple newtons, cheap iced oatmeal, you name it. They even like peanut butter-flavored dog biscuits!

StG

[LisaW-B]

My Whiskey also won't touch apple anything. When we first got him, he'd never had treats of any kind and didn't know what anything was or what to do with it. We stuffed horse cookies into his mouth and he just stood there, LOL. Carrots? No interest. He finally tried a cookie, and loved it. Carrots took some convincing, but now he loves those, too. Apples? No way! He eventually did try one, but rolled it around in his mouth and then spit it out. Now if anyone holds one up to him, they get his "What the h*ll?" look. He detests apple-flavored wormer but is indifferent to non-apple dewormers. And by detests, I mean he makes a face; he's still easy to deworm. But apples = flavorless, pointless, mealy... LOL.

[Lauruffian]

I have never owned a horse that liked peppermints, and that makes me sad. It sounds like a fun treat to have around, heh. Sad but sweet anecdote: the day we put our mare down, we were woefully short of carrots. Hubby thought this was not right--she must have all good things ever!--and raced over to the grocery to buy her a bag of carrots. He also came back with a bag of peppermints, saying, "I think I remember you saying she likes these." No, honey, you remembered me saying some horses like them so I tried getting her to like them, to no avail. We once again tried that last morning, but she spit them out, as she had always done.

My new boy is pretty food obsessed and I didn't think was picky. That is, until I tried mixing these new treats in his bucket with his sweet feed and supplements. He ate all around them--he licked the bucket clean--EXCEPT these treats.

I was so flabbergasted by his skill, I took a photo of his near-empty bucket. Boy's got TALENT.