[babyruth]

So, I got some bananas from the grocery store on the way home. They were super ripe and mushy. I cut them in snack size bites and as I was walking across the pasture from my house to the barn, I offered them to each horse as I came to them. Suri sniffed it with interest and then turned her nose up and walked off. Clete hates veggies and fruits anyway so he wouldn't even check out what I had. Lady started to take one, but dropped it before she really even had it. Blue acted like I wasn't even there. Belle spooked like I had just pulled a tiny rabid clown out of the bag and ran off snorting and crow hopping.

Cat was in the cross ties in the barn getting her shoe that she bent the other day replaced. She ate two little snack size bites, but did not want anymore.

So then I tried mixing some pieces in with the 5 baby carrots that Suri gets on her grain every night. Thought she may just eat them along with everything else. She wouldn't even eat around them. She would stare at the food, stare at me, stare at the food, stare at me....wander over to her hay...go back and look at her feed to see if the bananas were gone yet, look back up at me....finally I took the bananas out and she dug right in.

Are bananas an acquired taste for horses? I figured at least one of them would appreciate a banana every once in a while as a tasty treat.

[Jenje!]

My horse used to squish the banana out of the peel partway, fling it at me and then eat the peel. She would never eat the actual banana.

[2horsestoride]

With mine, I discovered it was an acquired taste. They were pretty indifferent at first, pretty much turned their noses up at them. I kept offering pieces and now they'll eat bananas just like apples, pears, carrots or anything else that they think they're not supposed to have!

[crasm]

my Horse Gladiator loves bananas. Of course he will eat anything that won't eat him first. My kids even fed him marshmellows one day he tried to get more. He is a pig. I havent found anything he won't eat. I usually throw my veggie and fruit scraps in a bucket and feed them to him at dinner time.

[babyruth]

Originally Posted by crasm

my Horse Gladiator loves bananas. Of course he will eat anything that won't eat him first. My kids even fed him marshmellows one day he tried to get more. He is a pig. I havent found anything he won't eat. I usually throw my veggie and fruit scraps in a bucket and feed them to him at dinner time.

Sounds like you "slop" your horse like people throw slop to the pigs !

I figured a couple of the brood mares would have been like that, but they were not interested in the least.

[Jenje!]

Page says don't act like it's insulting... PIGS don't have to be RIDDEN.

[babyruth]

Originally Posted by Jenje!

Page says don't act like it's insulting... PIGS don't have to be RIDDEN.

Oh, I meant no insult at all! Just sounded like the same way we use to feed the pigs. And some of the chickens come to think of it!

[AUDREY@HNM]

my horse absolutely love bananas he ate it as fast as he could the first time i gave it to him

i also read in a horse magazine that after a horse taste test bananas placed higher than apples and carrots of what the horses liked

[tbtrainer]

I have two horses out of 11 that will eat bananas... Grady just loves them, he gets a bananna a day...he will only eat it whole, not cut up though.

[Jenje!]

Originally Posted by AUDREY@HNM

i also read in a horse magazine that after a horse taste test bananas placed higher than apples and carrots of what the horses liked

Oh RIGHT...

I have this image in my head of the Cookie Monster getting more and more excited as he eats more and more cookies... my horse is the same way... the first carrot (or whatever) is like "ooh a carrot", the second is, "alright! another carrot!", the third is "OMG CARROT" and the fourth is "OMGOMGOMGOM1!1" (I don't give her THAT many carrots, haha, just a big one broken up.)

I think horses tend to get excited about food when it's unexpected and keeps on coming... So I'm not sure I'm sold on a "taste test" unless the horse were wired to a computer that would read pleasure waves in the brain...