One of the rules of feeding is to feed something succulent to your horse daily, and the most thought of options are apples and carrots.
As a bit of a domestic goddess now, well only once or twice a week when I batch cook and freeze baby sized portions of food, I’ve generated lots of vegetable peelings. Add into the equation that a lot of baby recipes say “half a beetroot” or “one and a half bananas” and the fact I don’t want to pile on the pounds by finishing off all her leftovers, we have some food leftovers.
Whilst sweeping the carrot peelings and tips into a bag for Phoenix, I suddenly wondered if she could have the beetroot left overs. Yes, I know they eat sugar beet which is a relative, but still I thought I’d better check.
A quick ask of Google, and I found a list of equine friendly fruit and vegetables. Some I knew (Otis is partial to a banana), and some I didn’t know about.
- Apple
- Apricot
- Banana (can be fed with the peel)
- Blackberry
- Coconut
- Grapefruit
- Orange
- Peaches
- Pear
- Pineapple
- Plum
- Strawberry
- Watermelon
- Beetroot
- Carrot
- Celery
- Cucumber
- Parsnip
- Swede
- Turnip
With this knowledge, I proceeded to add the remnants of the celery stalks to Phoenix’s bag.
The only safety issue with all these different vegetables is making sure that they don’t pose choking hazards. It’s a bit like having a baby around really. When I was young, it was drilled into us to cut carrots lengthways, not into discs, as it is less of a choking hazard. Unfortunately, it’s a rule that often gets forgotten, as many times I’ve seen well-meaning, naive riding school clients feeding their favourite horse some carrots cut into discs. I was particularly worried about the beetroot, so I roughly chopped that up before adding it to Phoenix’s bucket. Then I have halved the tips of the carrots and cut the celery into chunky sticks ready for tomorrow.
I wonder what Phoenix made of the beetroot she had in her dinner tonight…
