Conference noted::equitation

    My first pony Missy, ate EVERYTHING.  We never found anything she
    wouldn't eat - once she tried a tuna sandwich, spit it out, then went
    back and ate it.
    
    My next horse, Sioux, loved fruit.  We used to give her cherries and
    she'd eat a bunch, hold the pits in her mouth, then spit them at you
    when you weren't looking...boy she ruined more shirts of mine with
    little cherry spit marks on them.
    
    Gus was fussy - all he'd eat were donuts and an occasional cookie.
    
    Sullivan loved potato chips and pickles...he'd always have his head in
    my lunch at a show.
    
    Arnold adored sugar cookies...one of the woman at the barn used to bake
    them just for him....he loved her too...

    Jesse and Blue love beer!
    
    Sigrid loves ice cream, no particular flavor.  When ever we go for a
    ride or drive for ice cream, I have to make sure she gets her own
    ice cream, otherwise she'll eat mine!
    
    All three would probably eat more people food, espicially Sigrid.
    But since we board them out, we don't have the oportunity to see
    that part of their personality.  One of the girls I show with has
    a horse that either eats peperoni or hambergers.... (I forget).
                                   

    
    I never would have thought to offer my horse anything other than
    carrots or apples, since he is the fussiest thing when it comes
    to treats.  Since I did so much showing this summer, at least
    2 Sundays a month, I packed my lunch and brought carrots for him.
    I would eat my lunch, sitting near the trailer to keep him company.
    This horse, who refuses anything other than "normal" horse treats,
    mooched a bite of my peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich, fritos,
    potato chips, wanted but didn't get the ham & cheese bite, wheat
    cereal, cookies, sips of soda, and even tried to take a bite from my hubby's
    hotdog at the last show.  Now, if offered this stuff at home, he would
    spit it out!
    
    My other horse, tho', will eat anything, including pizza.  Comes from
    being owned by a young girl for most of his life.  She used to feed
    him spearmint chewing gum.....
    
    

    Our QH mare likes peppermint and spearmint life savers, beer
    (Coors is her favorite), and bread.  She was a "range pony" from Colorado.
    Worked rounding up cows, etc... She'll even eat dry cat food!
    Probably because of her previous life on the range.  How bad can
    it be tho?  She 35 years old this year and still bucking, rearing,
    and kicking up a storm on these frosty mornings...  :-)
    
    Our Morgan (AKA Mr. Picky) is strictly a carrot and apples and an
    occasional piece of bread man - mostly when it seems like the only
    treat is bread - and SHE is eating and he's not!

    Although mine seem to be picky eaters, I know a llama who
    loves pepperoni pizza.  He came from Benson's Wild Animal
    Farm and learned to eat junk food at an early age; I
    think he'll also eat french fries if given the chance.

    One of our will eat carrots sticks but neither one will
    touch apples -- hay, llama pellets and cracked corn are
    all they will eat, makes it hard to feed them a treat!


	JanB

    	Ebony loves cranberry juice, vienna cookies, and popsicles
    	[the first time he had one of those was pretty funny]. 

    My mare Holly loves absolutely ANYTHING apart from ice cream - she eats
    the cone but leaves the top.  Crisps are her favourite (potato chips in
    the US I think).  There has never been anything she has refused.
    
    Liz

Rocky eats *everything, whether or not it's "officially" edible! (no use
trying to use reason with him)

But he is especially partial to carrot cake ... he's very pleased they've
now opened a tea room nearby that serves cakes and is within rideable distance!
So am I :)

Ellen

    My horse will eat anything you put in his mouth - including fingers -
    but Citrus Pop Popsicles and Grammy Bears are his favorites.  I was
    warned about his taste for beer when I bought him - have kept him on
    the wagon for a year now.
    
    JB

    
    Sultan loves soda!  Any kind of soda!  He loves Sugar cubes to.  
    
    Poco wont eat a sugar cube. He'll spit it out at you.
    
    Joey, would only eay an apple if you pealed it for him.

    
    	This note has made me laugh and reminded me of some horses
    	from my past too...
    
    	Currently, my 3 yr old Morgan "d.v." will turn inside out
    	for after-dinner mints (those little pastel colored ones)...
    	We used them as 'bait' while teaching her to model and now
    	she thinks they're the BEST!  Her mother is also a mint fan
    	and enjoys a fig newton once in a while...
    
    	They both LOVE beer and don't care what kind it is.  They both
    	love carrots and apples too.
    
    	When I was a kid there was a wonderful Morgan gelding we all
    	showed - and he use to eat plums - and when he was done w/the	
    	outside he'd hold the pit in his front teeth and he could spit
    	it 10' - 15' (feet!!  honest!!)  It was the funniest thing to
    	watch... and the little kids would bring them and feed them	
    	to him and laugh and laugh and laugh.
    
    	

    My old pony Chuckie,  loves bananas! and if you are not
    fast enough, he'll try to eat the peel too! He also loves
    cereal, any type of bread, cookies.
    
    My other two wouldn't eat goodies if you force fed them.
    They take what I offer, and flip it up and down and around 
    and then spit it out.
    
    Tina
    

    
    My sister's horse *knows* what it means when she rides him down
    to the corner store.  He gets all antsy, waiting for the expected
    treat.
    
           Gatorade!
    
    The green colored flavor...he will wait patiently for his share,
    and only gets apprehensive when the bottle gets too close to the
    bottom, and he isn't offered any.  He starts to make little noises,
    and gets closer and closer to the bottle.  It's a riot to watch, and
    even funnier to see him slurp down the stuff when the container is
    placed against his lips......    

    I have a cousin who's horse ate their prize watermelon.  It was a
    volunteer from a stray seed in their flower garden.  It grew like crazy
    and every morning my uncle Melvin would thump it to see if it was ripe
    yet.  Finally the day came when it was time to pick it.  The whole
    family went outside to witness the great event.  As they stepped out
    onto the patio, everyone gasped in horror.  As my cousin described it,
    "...there was Smoky, spittin' seeds..."

    When I was a teenager I worked at a road-side restaurant.  I used to
    ride my horse there when I wasn't working and give him ice cream cones
    etc.  He got hooked on Fried Clams!  He'd eat anything I gave him.  He
    got loose one day when I was working and came down - 3 miles to the
    stand!
    
    He changed homes  and one day the people were making maple syrup in his 
    field.They had a huge kettle they had been cooking all day.  When the fire
    went out they needed to go somewhere so they left the kettle there to
    cool.  This thing was huge - probably 15 gallons.  When we returned,
    there was George finishing the last of the maple syrup!

    Jessie loves soda crackers and bananas along with the usual horse
    treats.  Willie who was range fed in his younger days will eat bananas
    but has no taste for sweets, except for sugar cubes.
    
    My daughters first horse loved everything we ate, as a matter of fact
    she ate the banana peel, loved ice cream and chocolate chip cookies.
    
    

    CHEWING TOBACOO Is a real favorite with all the horses I have had
    and worked around. My Buddy a Palomeno use to rip my jacket apart
    to get a pouch of chew!!
    
      In the racing bussiness it is part of the daily diet.
    
    Funny after thought,I told my ex-wife I had quit chewing tobacoo
    and one day in the barn good old My Buddy reaches in and pulls out 
    a pouch of Redman and kind of blow the whistle on me!!
    
                              JIMBO

    
    Chewing Tobacco *can* be poisonous to some animals......
    
    

    Including humans...There's a lot of evidence of mouth cancer caused by
    Chewing Tobacco, too. Even in teenagers who tried the stuff just a few
    times

My guys love any kind of hard candy. Neo will *try* anything you offer him - at 
least once. Zeus will eat anything "organic" and I do mean anything.... The horse
I had as a kid grabbed a tuna sandwich out of my hand and inhaled it once.

In the alcohol category - Zeus is happy to lap some beer out of your hand. Neo
is terrified of beer for some reason. The first time I poured some in my hand 
and offered it - he literally threw himself against the back of his stall and 
did his spooky TB blowing routine.

I have offered it to him a few times since - with the same reaction...

I should change his show name to "Designated Driver".....:-)

    
    
    re: -1
    
     
    Maybe the beer bubbles tickled Neo's nose!?
    
    

   My chap Mr bean ..Loves coke from a can and he drinks it from the can whilst

   you hold it for him only problem is that when he is finished you have to get 

   out of the    way if you havent another can , cos then the ears go back  

   and he starts to get stroppy if you havent another ....


   My mare Marney hasnt a clue she likes the taste but cannot grasp how you are

   supposed to drink out of a can !:-))))






Racheal

    re: chewing tobacco - I don't know that any studies have been done
    on it, but the old farmers I've known gave their cigarettes to horses
    as treats - said it prevented worms. This includes my grandfather on
    my father's side and my great grandfather on my mother's side, one from
    New England, one from upstate NY. They owned self-supporting dairy and
    vegetable farms. It may be an "old wives tale" (old farmers' tale?) but
    often there's something in these old things.

    John D., you seem to have an extensive library - do you think you might
    find time to check this out?

    thanks,
    -julie

    Re The old practice of feeding tobacco to prevent worms...and is there
    anything in it...
    
    I vaguely remember reading the answer to that somewhere... I think
    there is some compound in tobacco which does affect worms. I can't
    remember what it was though. If I remember right, the main problem with
    the practice was that when you gave the horse "enough" to actually do
    the worms some harm, the tobacco did the horse some harm as well...
    
    I'll see if I can find anything specific but I don't really even know
    where to look......Anybody got a Merck Vet Manual? I tossed my ancient one
    about 4 years ago and haven't replaced it.....

    
    Nicotine (the active, addictive component of tobacco) is a DEADLY
    poison.  One of the most effective ways of, say, getting the aphids off
    your roses, is to soak a pack of cigarettes in a jug of water and spray
    the resultant (nasty smelly) liquid on the plants.
    
    I'm SURE that sufficient quantities of tobacco would kill worms, but it
    is also toxic to animals (and humans!) so minght also adversely affect
    the horse.  Now, a 1200lb horse probably has enough body weight that
    eating a cigarette may not even make him sick, but if a dog, cat, bird,
    or smaller household pet or child ever eats a cigarette, you should
    call your vet/doctor/poison control center.
    
    Oh, yeah, and don't get that poor horse hooked on the stuff - can you
    imagine what horse-sized Nicoderm patches would cost -  Or what your
    favorite horse might be like all crabby from nicotine withdrawal :-)
    
    
    						/Rita
    

    That sounds right. I think it was nicotine! Thanks Rita.

    
    Heh, you're welcome, John!  I LOVE it when there I questions I know the
    answers to!
    
    Now, lets see, when I go to meet my new horse-friend this vacation, if
    I want him to REALLY like me, besides apples, carrots, and sugar cubes,
    I should take:  assorted cookies, girlscout and other; tuna sandwiches;
    potato chips; peanutbutter&jelly; donuts; life savers; gatorade; fried
    clams; ice cream; popsicles; carrot cake; cigarettes; beer; pizza  -
    hey wait a minute, these are not horses, these are *teenagers*!! :-)
    
    oh, yeah, and the universal food:
    
    
    
    			CHEETOS!
    
    I've never met an animal (seriously!) that didn't like 'em.  I nursed a
    parrto back to health once when the ONLY thing he was willing to eat
    were cheetos - no fooling!
    
    Happy holidays, everyone!
    
    					/Rita
    

    Just in case anybody's curious...
    
    I looked up nicotine and nicotinic acid in the dictionary....
    
    nicotine: "A poisonous alkaloid[chemical formula omitted] derived from
    the tobacco plant and used in medicine and as an insecticide."
    
    Niacin = nicotinic acid: A member of the vitamin B complex,[chemical
    formula omitted], occuring in living cells as an essential substance
    for growth; can be synthesised for medical use by oxidizing nicotine.

    Our 35+ year old mare has to have all her
    pellet/grain rations soaked in warm water so she can
    get enough food into her.  (Can't chew hay tho she tries...)
    
    During the winter I usually add Metamucil (sp) every few days
    just to keep her regular... anyway, don't know what made me do it but
    the last time I bought "orange" flavor.  She *used* to take forever
    to eat 4 qts of pellets and 2 qts of grain... but add anything
    orange flavored - and it takes only ~15 minutes!  No more Ms Pickey!
    
    Now I use Tang (you remember the drink that went to the moon) in
    every feeding.  Sure beats getting up at 4:30AM so she'll finsih
    eating before 5:30AM !  And loads less expensive than Metamucil.
    
    Anyone know of any other product that is orange flavored that might
    be even cheaper?  And, hopefully better for her...
    
    
    thanks,
    Cheryl

Stress Dex is orange flavored electrolytes.  Not sure how it compares to Tang
as far as price is concerned.  Probably depends on the amount you add to her 
feed.

Stress Dex is available in various size containers.  As usual, the bigger the 
container, the cheaper the per serving cost.

    Hmmm, that's interesting - but how would I know if she
    needs more electrolytes?  what would the 'shortage' signs be?
    
    thanks

    
    Dehydration (not drinking enough water)
    
    

    The only time I've noticed any dehydration is when it suddenly
    turns *very* cold and I am not there to feed her the 'mush'
    every couple of hours.  Her haunches (sp) ie: the area in front
    of her hip bones - gets very sunken looking...
    
    A couple of regular feedings of mush and she fills right out again.
    
    Could any damage be done by feeding her electrolytes if she didn't
    really need them?  Or is much like vitamins - they just go thru
    and 'exit' as excess...

    
    Electrolytes are what needs to be replaced after exercise (or
    dehydration) because that's when the body uses them up.  My guess
    is (and this is a guess) that you could use the electrolytes for
    at least 1 tang replacment, with no problems, and possibly a benefit,
    sue to her age and the weather.....
    
    Lynne

Cheryl,

One thing you haven't said yet is *how much* 'orange stuff' you add to
your mare's feed.  Are we talking tablespoons, cups, quarts?  Giving you horse
a scoop (~ 1 oz) of electrolytes when she doesn't need it is most likely not 
going to harm her, but I would get a *professional* opinion before giving her
more than twice that.


kathy

    Well, I've tried to give her as little "tang" as possible...
    It does have chemicals in it that I wouldn't eat - why
    should I expect her to.
    
    But I do need to 'encourage' her to eat... and it seems that the
    least amount of "tang" it takes to get her attention is 3 tablespoons
    per 2qts of pellets + 1 qt omilene 100.  She susually will eat this
    twice  a day...  the rest of the time she munges up hay and drools it
    around the place...  she doesn't get much actually into her.
    
    I have never used electrolytes.  Tho at the state police mounted
    unit in Mass where I do some volunteer work they use it on a regular
    basis.  But then again - those ponies work!
    
    

    
    Since a lot of people drink Gatorade (which is electrolytes among
    other ingredients), I see no problem with feeding orange stress-dex
    electrolytes once a day........
    
    

Cheryl,

I'd consult your vet on this one.  You might try a small container of Stress Dex
and see if your horse likes it.  For a short duration (few days?), overfeeding 
the electrolytes *probably* isn't going to hurt.  If she likes it, talk to you
vet about how much you have to give her to get her to eat her grain. This would 
also give you an opportunity to see if it is more cost-effective than Tang.

Kathy

ps. if the vet okays the electrolytes, then you have other flavoring 
opportunities, like apple ;^)

    Cheryl,
    
    Am I missing something here? You asked for orange flavored products
    that were (hopefully) cheaper & healthier than Tang. Did anybody recommend
    the obvious: orange juice? 
    
    I don't remember the price last time I bought it but OJ is usually
    cheaper than Tang and it's definitely orange flavored!
    
    I'd try it. Maybe substitute a little OJ for some of the water in her
    "mush"? This is the 35 YO mare you feed mush to, right? If she goes for 
    juice, you have a wide variety of flavors you could try.(But only at
    night when it doesn't matter if she's a little slow about eating ;-)
    
    John

    Great idea John.  I'll try it!
    
    As for apples, carrots etc... I make my own fruit and vegetable
    juices daily (for personal health reasons) and always give her
    the pulp.  Seperately of course... and she just dosen't "gobble"
    them up quite as well as Tang.  <sigh>
    
    I'll try the OJ tonight (have to stop for Moo on the way home
    anyway) and I'll let you know!
    
    thanks!

    <sigh> No luck.
    
    She picked around at the food, kept looking at me like,
    "nice try Ma, but no cigar!"
    
    I added a quart of OJ figureing that 3-4 Tablespoons of Tang
    makes about that much drink...
    
    The OJ was $1.50/qt.  at that rate Tang (or some super market
    equivalent) may be better - at least she Loves that!
    
    oh well, don't know till ya try!

    Hi,
    
    Yes, we use regular white sugar sometimes out of frustration...
    
    But put a taste of Tang in it - and - slurp, gobble, munch...
    good bye food.  :-)
    
    After reading about Holly's horse liking peppermints I think
    I'll give them a try :-)  
    
    Haven't resorted to brown sugar - tho it is worth keeping 
    in mind.  thanks.

    For different reasons, we used jello.  Now are you feeding this Tang
    dry mixed with the feed and water or do you mix it with the water first
    then the feed?
    
    Jello comes in many different flavors too.
    
    

    Wheather I add Tang, shredded carrots or sugar or what have you
    it is always to the pellets/grain + warm water.
    
    This mare has NO teeth.  Can't expect her to chock down dry food...

    I understood that you were adding water.  What I was wondering was if
    you mix the tang in water then pour it over the pellets or if you added
    the powdered tang to the pellets then the water.  Now that I think of
    it I guess it wouldn't really matter.
    
    Sorry.
    

    Back to the foods that horses like...
    
    In Europe, I found the horses would go for the wine, beer and also
    pop's (ie. coke, etc.).  They would eat potatoe chips, etc.
    
    Back in the states, at Univ. of Ky., the horses would kill for
    popsicles, esp. orange.
    
    Here in Dallas, one horse I rode, would get fruits and donuts and
    French Fries.  We once rode thru the drive-thru of a "burger" joint,
    and had everyone in the restaurant looking.
    
    My current TB is Tibu, and he will do a body search for carrots, but
    will eat fresh shavings, but he will mow you down to get to dog/cat
    food.  (fortunately the new barn doesn't leave this tasty treats out).
    
    Bruce