Feeding Vegatables

[edward]

Hello Everyone,

A friend of mine is feeding his horses buckets full of vegatables and I read somewhere that it is not good for your horses. Has anyone heard or know anything about feeding/nutrition?

Edward

[kelso]

I've heard that chickweed (though not technically a "vegetable") is a great additive to peoples' salads and to horses feed, if they'll eat it. where I live, it grows rampid in our flowerbeds, so pulling it out kills two birds with one stone. Don't know about everyday veggies, but thought that might be an interesting tidbit for you.

[edward]

Glad you mentioned Chickweed because I did a little research and found out that many plants, trees and weeds are poisonous to horses.

This website has a partial listing at:http://www.allabouthorses.com/site/health/toxicology.html

So you have to be very careful what you feed. There is a lot of misinformation in the horse world much more so than in other areas. Many originate from old ideas that were inaccurate to begin with. They spread from person to person and end with many folks believing in something that is totally wrong.

I just checked out chickweed on several sites and could not find it on any toxic/poison lists so it "may" not be toxic to horses. But since horses main diet is grass it "may" not be good for them either.

While I was looking around I found that there is a bunch of plants that are named "weed" that ARE TOXIC to horses:
All the milkweed plants and Locoweed Coffeeweed Richweed Bitterweed
Burrow weed Knap weed and who knows how many more.

I don't know about you guys but I am not going out in the yard or pasture and just picking plants for my horses to eat.

Edward

[Laurie]

In John Lyon's Perfect Horse magazine there's an article this month on this subject - and I do feed my horses tidbits from my garden. A whole bucket? Suppose if they're used to it...the article mentions peas, oranges, grapefruit, dry split peas, beans...depends what your horse will actually eat. Not a substitute for a balanced diet but better treats than sugary things. And there are, as other posts say, a lot of plants that are poisonous to horses but in my experience they don't eat them! I think on good grass/grain/hay horses will not eat milkweed or other dangerous plants.