Ep. 041: You Want to Feed Your Horse What?!

Episode Notes

On this episode, co-hosts Dr. Tania Cubitt and Katy Starr discuss the non-traditional type things people like to or have heard of others feeding their horses including:

• Something a client wanted to feed their horse that caught Dr. Cubitt off guard  

• Can you feed garlic – is it dangerous to feed horses?

• Can you feed chia seeds – will it move sand through the gut?

And so much more! Were you surprised by anything we talked about on this episode?

Have any topics you want to hear more about? Let us know at podcast@standlee.com.

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Scientific References:

~ 14:53 – Discussion about a 2005 research study about feeding freeze-dried garlic to horses increased anemia -

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15822591/

~ 22:58 – Discussion about research out of UC Davis which supports feeding a half a cup a day of apple cider vinegar for preventing enteroliths -

https://ceh.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk4536/files/inline-files/CEH_Health_Topics_Enteroliths_0.pdf

~ 27:52 – Discussion about odd things that horse’s eat from Rutger’s University -            

https://esc.rutgers.edu/fact_sheet/odd-things-that-horses-eat/#:~:text=Most%20bulb%20type%20flowers%20(tulip%2C%20iris%2C%20etc.)&text=Hot%20dogs%2C%20hamburgers%2C%20tuna%20fish,ham%20or%20even%20roastbeef%20sandwiches!&text=Sugar%20candies%20such%20as%20jelly,gummy%20bears%2C%20peppermints%2C%20etc.&text=Carrots%20in%20very%20large%20quantities%20only%20(over%205%20lbs%20day)

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• Check out the Standlee Barn Bulletin Blog
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• *Views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of Standlee Premium Products, LLC.*

Read full episode transcript

Katy Starr (00:01):

Hi, I'm Katy 

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (00:02):

And I'm Dr. Cubitt. We're going Beyond the Barn. Come join us on this journey as we bust equine and livestock nutrition myths and interview some of the most intriguing experts in the country.

 

Katy Starr (00:15):

We'll go behind the scenes of how premium Western quality forage is grown and brought to your favorite farm and ranch retail store. We're so glad you're here. Welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Barn, Dr. Cubitt, you are back with us today. It's great to have you.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (00:35):

I am excited to be back.

 

Katy Starr (00:36):

Today we are going to be talking about, you want to feed your horse what? And that means that we have heard, you know, from our friends that ride horses or at the barn, or at shows, you know, oh, so, and so says, this is great for this. Or you should feed your horse this. And so since we have a nutrition expert on with us today, I thought it would be a great conversation for us to talk about all of these different things that people think should be fine to feed to their horses. And we can find out today.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (01:10):

Yes. There are some interesting, interesting choices here. Yeah.

 

Katy Starr (01:15):

Yeah. It'll be interesting conversation for sure. And I should say we're recording this late July and so if you hear background noises, we just got done a lot of the area here with second cutting. And so we have, I'm surrounded by alfalfa fields and barley fields. So if you hear crop dusters or farm equipment, that is why in my background and before we get started, any of the topics that we cover on the, beyond the barn podcast, they are more generalized and not specific to any individual horse or any specific situation. So be sure to always work with your veterinarian and nutritionist before making any drastic changes to your horses' feed program, you can always reach out to us and talk directly to Dr. Cubitt or Dr. Duren on any specifics that you'd like to know. So Dr. Cubitt, let's kind of just get us started with, and we talk about this often, but what are horses designed to eat based off of their digestive systems?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (02:14):

I really think that is a great place to start. And it's always the question when you are at home or you are tempted to try something new, it's always the question you should ask yourself, go back to what is the horse meant to be eating or designed to do. And really, if you think about a wild horse, he stands out in a field and eats a wide variety of different fiber sources, forbs, weeds, you know, fibers, not all grasses, but some things that might be a bit more of a woody weed or some tree leaves. I mean, they eat a wide variety of different fibers. That's what horses are typically designed to eat.

 

Katy Starr (02:52):

And then historically, how did we come to find and add like cereal grains and concentrates to their diets?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (02:59):

Well, I mean, you can just do a little Wikipedia search and go back and horses have been domesticated for thousands of years, but if you look more in our kind of modern context, if we don't look at chariots and Romans, but if we look at more modern context and think about when the horse became a primary mode of transportation, as well as a primary work animal in our fields, when we started farming fields and using the horse, as you know, a work animal in the eighteen hundreds, then we were growing cereal grains, and we realized that horses needed more calories and protein to support the extra work that we were making them do. And so that's when we really started feeding them those cereal grains, cuz that's what we were growing for ourselves to eat as well.

 

Katy Starr (03:51):

Right. And then what are your thoughts about every once in a while changing up feed routines in the sense that, you know, maybe they wanna give their horse an apple once a week or, and I know we've talked about this, but like a winter feed, in the Winter feed like a mash once a week or anything like that, where just every once in a while we're giving them, you know, a little treat that we think is a treat or something like that.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (04:15):

A small treat is one thing, but we have to remember that horses are routine animals and their GI tract is full of all kinds of different microorganisms. We collectively call it the microbiome and that actually takes a full 21 days to adjust to new types of food. So when you put in, let's say your horse is used to eating a high fiber-based diet without a lot of sugar. And then once a week in the wintertime, it seems to happen the most you give a bran mash, that's got apples and carrots and some other sweet things that they're not used to. Those bacteria don't know what to do with that. And you might actually cause a gastric upset or some transient diarrhea. So I prefer that you feed the same thing every day. That's not to say that seasonally, we don't change the horse's diet. You know, some people have access to pasture, their horses have pasture.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (05:08):

So in the summer and spring months, they maybe will feed a little less fiber as hay because they're relying more on the pasture availability. And maybe in the wintertime, you don't wanna ride as much. So your horse doesn't need as many calories for exercise. So he's on more of a maintenance diet or let's say your horse has an injury and he changes from being on a diet for a heavily exercising horse to now being maintenance or light exercise because he's healing from an injury. So we certainly, I'm not opposed to changing the diet based on the circumstances that horse is in, but I don't want you to rapidly change it week to week. They need to adjust and that's why we always recommend that kind of seven to 14 day window to adjust your horse to new food. It's because of that microbiome and how it takes a full 21 days to adjust to new types of food.

 

Katy Starr (05:59):

Excellent. And you have been a nutritionist for quite a while. So you have heard so many things from clients, but what is something that you have heard someone ask about wanting to feed their horse that just kind of caught you off guard?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (06:13):

I was fortunate enough, I've traveled to China a couple of times with different clients. And one of the weirdest things that came across my desk was feeding eggs to horses, raw eggs, but the more I looked into it, it actually is pretty common place in Irish and English racing barns and thoroughbred barns that they would feed their horses raw eggs. I think for the protein again, any new thing you add to the horse's diet, you have to do it gradually. So I don't think there's anything wrong with feeding eggs to horses seems a little odd and it did catch me off guard, but yeah, that's probably the weirdest thing.

 

Katy Starr (06:54):

Interesting. I've seen that some people have asked state side just more about like they have asked about raw eggs also, but then boiled or scrambled and then like crushed eggs. They have said that it's enhanced, like the coat and tail of the horse. Have you had any experience with that?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (07:10):

The only thing that I have found is raw eggs, not the shell and yeah, not cooked scrambled that's I have, and I've not really heard about it for hair and code. It was more for the protein content.

 

Katy Starr (07:26):

And I wanna get into more now, some of the things that we have heard from others, more nontraditional things about wanting to feed their horses. So we wanna get your advice on some of these other things. So sunflower seeds, we've heard 'em talk about like whole or ground and they've referred to it as black oil sunflower seeds do

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (07:45):

Well. And what's interesting because you know, obviously I have a list here of all of the different, strange things that people feed and what we think are strange might be strange here in America, maybe actually commonplace in other parts of the world and now that the internet is so accessible, I think that's why folks here might be asking more questions about what we consider weird food sources, cuz maybe they've seen it on a British website or an Australian website “oh, I wanna try that.” But sunflower seeds actually a pretty common place in Australia. We use them a lot. There are actually two different types of sunflower seeds grown though that we would be familiar with confectionary, sunflower seeds. They have the stripy seed coat. They've got a more, hard seed coat and that's what we would buy at the store for us, you know?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (08:37):

When you see people, they crack the shell off and then they eat the little thing inside, right? So you don't feed those to horses because that outer seed coat is really quite hard if you've ever accidentally chewed on that, it's pretty fibrous and gross. And then the oil seed sunflowers, which are, have a much thinner skin and they are really high in fat content. And that's what people will feed to horses, black oil sunflower seeds, which is abbreviated to boss. Thinner skins, anywhere from 26 to 45% fat content. Some people will feed up to about two cups measuring cups a day and it's really it'll give the horse a nice shiny coat cuz it's fat.

 

Katy Starr (09:18):

Right. Okay. That makes sense. A couple other things that I had heard about it was can it change a horse's color or can it cause joint inflammation?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (09:28):

I have not heard the one about joint inflammation, but I'm guessing that stems from looking at the different types of omega three fatty acids versus omega six fatty acids and black oil sunflower seeds are not high in omega six fatty acids. So I wouldn't say that they would cause inflammation and we're also really not feeding that much of it. They're not super high in omega three fatty acids either. So I doubt that they would be a great source for decreasing inflammation, but really the shiny coat. It's not gonna change the horse's coat color. There are some other ingredients that can supposedly do that, but the fat content will just enhance the depth, you know.

 

Katy Starr (10:10):

Right. That makes a lot of sense. And so what about, I think it's common among those that own donkeys that, you know, they can incorporate straw into their diets. What about wheat straw specifically for donkeys?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (10:26):

So this is very interesting cuz there's actually been quite a bit of research recently and I can share with you some of those links for listeners that might want to read a little bit more, but

 

Katy Starr (10:38):

Oh excellent.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (10:39):

In Europe, it's actually quite commonplace to feed wheat straw to horses, but donkey's being such easy keepers. Uh, they have about 75% the requirement of their equine counterparts. So they're real easy keepers. You don't need to feed them a lot. They are plagued with crusty necks and obesity. So finding a forage that you can feed enough to keep the gut healthy and give them all their fiber requirements, but isn't gonna be high calorie and put weight on them. Wheat straw has been used and it's very low in energy. And the most recent research actually showed that it did prolonged feeding times. So it took them a lot longer to chew it. One of the things that we have to be cautious of is obviously we don't want all the wheat seeds in the straw it's just after the harvest, but we also mycotoxins in any of the grain based hays can be an issue. So we just wanna make sure that it's very clean. It's not moldy and we decrease our risk for mycotoxins.

 

Katy Starr (11:42):

Right. And for anybody who's interested in learning more about donkeys and they haven't listened before, episode 30 I believe I had a great conversation with Dr. Duren on feeding donkeys. So that'd be a great episode to learn more about them. Another one that I heard about was beer to help with anhidrosis.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (12:02):

So for those that aren't familiar, anhidrosis is a disorder in horses where they lose their ability to sweat and sweating is one of the primary ways that horses will dissipate heat. So they don't have a weight. They really struggle with heat regulation and temperature regulation. People have fed Guinness to horses. They've fed all kinds of different things to horses that have this non sweating disorder. None of them have been shown scientifically to actually work. So if you feed beer to your horse and you think it works, great, it's not gonna hurt your horse. Typically it's Guinness because it was very high in B vitamins. And we see that a lot also in the kind of old school racing barns with the eggs. But I have not found beer to be an across the board standard staple works for horses that don't sweat, management like riding them in cooler temperatures and things like that are much more effective.

 

Katy Starr (13:02):

Okay. And what about ground flax seed? We've had some people asking about that. Giving shiny coats to horses.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (13:10):

Flax in general is pretty popular because it is high in omega three fatty acids, but we have three different types of omega three fatty acids, there's ALA and then there's DHA and EPA. And the DHA and EPA are actually what get used by the animal. And that ALA has to get converted to DHA and EPA. DHA and EPA typically come from your Marine based sources like algae or fish, but the flax is high in that omega three fatty acid. It can provide, also it's an oil seed, so it does provide fat. So it will make your horse's coat shiny. But I find most people feed flax because they want to improve the omega-3 fatty acid content in their diet. When you grind it, you are exposing that oil to oxygen. So oxidization is gonna occur and it'll go rancid. So we don't wanna buy large quantities of ground flax that isn't treated. So it doesn't have some kind of stabilization in it.

 

Katy Starr (14:09):

Oh, that's good to know.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (14:10):

Yeah. If you're buying whole flax and you're grinding it yourself and feeding it to your horse, then you would do that daily, whole flax seeds, ground flax seeds. I know in a lot of commercial feed stuff we actually add flax into those commercial concentrates because it is higher in omega three fatty acids.

 

Katy Starr (14:28):

Okay. And then another one that I heard about was, does feeding garlic protect horses from flies.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (14:36):

Oh, and right now you mentioned to the listeners that it is July when we are recording this. So it is a common question I'm getting “oh my gosh, I can't keep the flies away from my horse. What can I do? I feed garlic and can it cause anemia?” Yes. So there was, again, I will share a research study that was done. It's just one study. So we can't hang our head on it. But in 2005 there was a study that looked at feeding freeze, dried garlic to horses, and it did increase anemia in these horses. So there's no safe dose of garlic. There's been no research to tell us exactly how much we should feed or what's safe. So I encourage people to use tried and true fly protection and not rely on garlic.

 

Katy Starr (15:20):

Right. Until maybe more research is, uh, done on it. Exactly. Yeah. I think that's a good idea. Okay. And this is one that we heard about obviously not this time of year, but there were some people that would throw out their Christmas trees after Christmas time into the pasture for their horses to chew on good idea or bad idea.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (15:42):

Uh I have goats, I have two goats and I read, look, I'm gonna say, I'm just like all of our listeners, I read on Facebook that you could feed Christmas trees to goats. And I have a friend who is a goat expert and she said, yes, actually it is really good for goats as a natural dewormer, the pine needles, as far as horses, I would not feed a Christmas tree to a horse because everybody buys a different type of tree. We know that pine needles can be toxic to horses. Yew trees are toxic to horses. So I would not feed a Christmas tree to a horse ever. No.

 

Katy Starr (16:23):

Okay. Well, and you never know too, like anybody that's ever taken like the decorations off, inevitably, there's always a small little ornament or something that gets stuck on the tray too. So and then how about chia seeds? Can that help move sand through the gut at all?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (16:41):

So chia seeds are another interesting one. And if you've ever made like a chia pudding yourself, you know that when you put milk or water with it, it gelatinize, it's really gluey and gooey. And so I think that's why people think, oh, well I could use this as a sand clear type product. Just like cilium cuz when you wet cilium, it will do the same thing. It will get all gluey. Chia seeds primarily can be added to the diet because they are also high in omega three fatty acids, as far as using it to clear sand out of the gut. I do not believe that it's as effective as cilium. And the reason why is most people will do it daily and just add a little bit daily. And what we've found is that's really not effective for clearing sand that we should do say a once a month treatment of large doses of cilium to actually push all of that sand out versus just a little bit every day.

 

Katy Starr (17:40):

Okay. And can you talk to us a little bit about Dolomite, we had someone asking about if horses are able to absorb it.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (17:48):

You know, this one caught me off guard a little bit and Dolomite is magnesium and calcium together and you can go online and there's 50,000 different supplements that contain Dolomite that are saying they're great for growing horses and bone and, and leg development. I know that there are sources of calcium that are much more bio available than the standard limestone, calcium limestone is very common. So that's calcium carbonate and that's very commonly used in a lot of feed products and is great. But there are new forms of calcium that are much more bio available. And I think even just the calcium in alfalfa is more bio available.

 

Katy Starr (18:34):

Okay. And what about haylage?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (18:37):

So this gets into the whole fermented forage products. Haylage, baleage I mean, silage, they all fall into that fermented hay category. I never recommend anyone feed their whole silage. Every year I have people, oh my horse ate some silage and it's not doing well because it's a rapid feeding change. Silage can harbor botulism mycotoxins, which horses are very, very sensitive to. Haylage in Europe actually is very commonly fed to horses because it rains all the time and they can't make hay. We here in the United States have the opportunity. We have the growing conditions we can make perfect hay. We do not have to feed fermented hay products. That being said, if you do buy a fermented hay product, a Hayli, I know there are some commercially available. What you need to be very careful about is when I say, or any nutritionist says that your horse needs to eat anywhere between one and a half to two and a half percent of their body weight in dry matter fiber per day.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (19:40):

That's dry matter. If you look at these haylage products, if you look at the guaranteed analysis, most of them are at least 80% water and only 20% dry matter because all of that moisture has not been dried out of the product. So if you're feeding four pounds of haylage, 80% of that is water and only 20% of that is dry matter. So don't feel like you're feeding four pounds of fiber. You're actually not. So that would be my biggest caution when you're buying some of the smaller vacpack commercial products is they have to be used very quickly because they can mold. You're not getting a hundred percent dry matter. Like you are pretty much with hay, so you have to feed more of it. And as far as making it at home and feeding it, there's just no need because we have ideal growing conditions to make and preserve dry hay.

 

Katy Starr (20:31):

Do you think, cuz you had mentioned it's a very commonplace in Europe to feed haylage, the horses that are over there and that have eaten that like their whole lives. Do you feel like they would be more accustomed to consuming that versus a horse over here that maybe has never had it and then is introduced to it?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (20:50):

I mean any horse that is used to eating something is more accustomed to it. So I think you can adjust a horse here to it. Just like you could adjust a horse in Europe to eating dry hay. You just have that transition period.

 

Katy Starr (21:04):

Right. Okay. And how about beans? Pinto, black, red, can they cause gas or colic in horses?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (21:12):

You know, this was interesting and you know, you originally wrote beans and pinto and then went on to say, would they cause gas or colic? Anything if you just fed it to a horse and didn't slowly adapt them to, it absolutely could cause gas or colic because those bacteria, as a byproduct of, you know, changing rapidly are going to produce gas. So on one hand, I'll say yes, if you fed those out of the blue to your horse, you could absolutely cause gas or colic. Now a horse that is adjusted to eating pinto beans, black beans, red beans that is not gonna by itself cause gas, colic, high end protein like other legumes though, they have to be heat treated. So like soybeans, they have to be heat treated because they have an anti-nutritional factor in them, which needs to be broken down by heat. But beans provide high amounts of protein. If you look in, you know, diets in Australia, they grow a lot more legumes, a lot more different types of beans. So beans we've never even heard of here are commonplace in equine diets in Australia.

 

Katy Starr (22:18):

Oh, interesting. Okay. And how about apple cider vinegar? Can it be used as a digestive aid at all?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (22:25):

You know this one's interesting cuz some people love it, swear by it. Others, it doesn't even cross their radar, but it's definitely been around for a long time, even just look in people's kitchens. Oh, I swear about it. I take apple side of vinegar daily. So again, back to the research because that's all we can go by. There's been a couple of research papers. One out of Cornell was feeding a cup a day and it actually made the hind gut more acidic. Now that's not always a good thing. If we already have a stressed horse that isn't eating a bunch of fiber and maybe the high guts already acidic, that could cause high gut ulcers, but then research out of UC Davis in California actually recommends feeding half a cup day for preventing enteroliths. Enteroliths is a buildup of mineral deposits around something the horse has ingested.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (23:14):

It could be a piece of string. It could be a stick. And then they form these crystal salt-like hard structures in the horse's gut and can actually cause an impaction and lead to death. I mean they can be really terrible. So in that case, the acidity actually helps to break down some of those salts. But if you don't live in an area where enteroliths are common, then I'm not sure that I, as a nutritionist am constantly trying to create diets that decrease the acidity in the gut. So I don't know that I would be advocating feeding large quantities of apple cider vinegar if I wasn't in an area that had enteroliths.

 

Katy Starr (23:53):

Okay. And this was kind of a crazy thing and you, I don't know that you've heard anything about it, but I just found it to be quite interesting. But somebody had mentioned that it heard it can make the horse's blood taste acidic to tick.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (24:05):

Hmm. Yeah, no don't know anything about that.

 

Katy Starr (24:08):

I just thought that was kind of an interesting comment. And then for colic, someone was asking about using original Dawn soap with some water to work as like a laxative. They had tried it on a steer before and obviously cattle and horses are different animals. But just wondering about that

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (24:27):

So, you know, I would love to say that I just know all this stuff off the top of my head, but Katy sent me a list of all the questions so that I could make sure I had the most up to date research. And this question I've got notes all over my paper. This particular bullet point though, the only thing I wrote was no, that's it. No I don't, I don't have anything.

 

Katy Starr (24:49):

Don't even try anything.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (24:50):

Just, I don't even try it.

 

Katy Starr (24:52):

Call your vet, call your vet, call your vet maybe that would be better. Your vet . Okay. What about feeding cinnamon to horses?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (25:00):

Again? Another one that has over the years been a hot topic. A cinnamon has been touted as an antioxidant, an antidiabetic and antimicrobial to date though. There is no controlled research in horses. So I know that some people feed it because they, or if you look at supplements that are for kind of regulating glucose and insulin in those crusty neck horses, a lot of people will add cinnamon. But again, I haven't seen any really good controlled research to say that it works in horses. There's a lot of research in people, but haven't seen any in horses.

 

Katy Starr (25:38):

Okay. Another one that I heard about was feeding raw pumpkins to horses after Halloween.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (25:45):

And I hadn't heard anything about this, but this was another one that I was able to look up and pumpkins are high in vitamin A, C, E and potassium. But it suggested that yes, you can feed raw pumpkins after Halloween, but only the carving or pie type pumpkins, because we know that they're not toxic. Cut them up into small cubes like you would carrot so that they don't choke on it. And don't feed any of the other like decorative gourd, like pumpkins, because they could definitely be toxic.

 

Katy Starr (26:14):

Oh, interesting. Okay. And make sure you don't have any leftover little candles into your jack-o-lantern.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (26:21):

I mean, our pumpkins last year had toothpicks and all kinds of stuff in them. And so when I threw them into the field for my cows to eat, but I was frantically picking all of the other out of our pumpkins before I threw them out there.

 

Katy Starr (26:36):

Yeah. And how about cocoa bean husks or shells?

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (26:41):

And this is another one that only familiar with, because I was fortunate enough in 2010 to be one of the nutritionist for the world, equestrian games in Kentucky. And so we had to be very well versed on all of the banned substances and uh, things that could contaminate feeds because you know, sometimes bad things happen to good people and you're not actively adding something bad to your horse's diet, but all of a sudden they're testing. So cocoa beans, husk shells contain an ingredient called theobromine. And it actually has been shown that only 10 M&Ms, so 10 peanut M&M feed that to your horse. 48 hours later, there will still be detectable levels of theobromine in the horse's urine. So we do not ever feed chocolate, chocolate bean, husk shells or anything like that to horses because theobromine is a banned and prohibited substance.

 

Katy Starr (27:40):

Oh, interesting. Okay. Well I think that's all I have on my list today.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (27:46):

Well, I actually reached out to a friend of mine who I know had written something along these lines at Rutgers university, Dr. Kerry Williams. So I've got a few other strange, strange things here that we haven't actually covered.

 

Katy Starr (28:03):

Excellent

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (28:04):

Oddities often consumed by horses on pasture. No problem. Because when a horse is out at pasture, they're not really going to be eating a bunch of it. They might be just nibbling here and there and dandy lions, sunflower plants, actually, maybe they growing in your field, peanut plants, blood raspberry or Blackberry bushes. They might nibble on them. And they're all gonna be fine if as long as they're not just eating large quantities of them, potential problem. If eaten in large quantities, butter cups, morning glory, poke weeds, St. John's wart, gumweed, avocado leaves. I don't know why in north America, people would have lots of avocado leaves, but there you go. Bracken fern. Avoided all costs, this was privet and yew, and azelia, rhododendron, pits of peaches, cherries or avocados. Do not throw those out for your horses, but potential treats, I thought these were interesting. There's some weird ones on here. Acceptable treats fed in limited quantities. Of course, carrots, apples, grapes, bananas, peas, green beans, lettuce, celery, dried beans, such as pinto red fiber beans, but they should be cooked. watermelon rinds. That was a good one cuz that's a waste product. Anyway, mangoes, not the seeds. As a kid, my gray pony used to eat mangoes and they would get covered in the orange flash and then spit the seeds out raisins, rice products. If you've cooked rice, I mean rice cake, but eggs. This even says hot dogs.

 

Katy Starr (29:38):

Oh interesting.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (29:39):

I'm not gonna feed my horse a hot dog, but if your horse ate a little bit of your hot dog, it wouldn't kill it. So anyway, there you go.

 

Katy Starr (29:48):

That's so interesting. Maybe they wanna share a little treat with them on like the 4th of July or something

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (29:53):

Oh, here I'm reading even further safe in very limited quantities, but we'll cause positive drug tests. This is a good one too. Sassafras, tobacco. Obviously we are never feeding our horses tobacco. Carrots in very large quantities, over five pounds a day, persimmon, chocolate in any form. Never do that. Nutmeg, caffeinated sodas cuz caffeine is a detectable and banned substance alcohol, never feed your horse. alcohol. Of course, that is a no no. So some interesting things there.

 

Katy Starr (30:24):

Have you heard of, you had mentioned like peach pits and like avocado pits. Do apricots fall into that as well? Like the apricot pits.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (30:32):

It doesn't say it, but I would just out of an abundance of caution, throw it all in there together. I think it's something about cyanide cuz we were just having this conversation the other day.

 

Katy Starr (30:42):

Interesting. For our listeners. We hope you enjoyed today's conversation. If you have any suggestions or ideas on topics that you would like us to discuss in future episodes, please reach out to us at podcast@standleeforage.com. Or if you just wanna give us some feedback, did you like the episode? Is there something that you didn't like? No matter what we just love to hear from you. Thanks Dr. Cubitt. We will catch you all in the next episode.

 

Dr. Tania Cubitt (31:12):

Thank you so much.

 

Katy Starr (31:14):

On our next episode, episode 42, I will be interviewing world renowned horse clinician, Clinton Anderson. Tune in Tuesday, September 13th, I guarantee you'll wanna hear this episode. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Beyond the Barn podcast by Standlee Forage. We'd love for you to share our podcast with your favorite people and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite listening platform. Until next time, keep your cinch tight and don't forget to turn off the water.