We all love to enjoy a snack from time to time, possibly even a guilty pleasure. Sometimes you just gotta have a cheat day. The same goes for horses. Of course, they like their daily meal, but we secretly just love to spoil them once in a while with a special snack. We do it as part of training as a reward, or sometimes we just feel like it. It’s not always healthy but luckily there are a lot of options for snacks nowadays.
Reward your horse the ‘right’ way
If you've just taught your horse a new trick at liberty work, mastered a new technique during riding or behaved excellently during groundwork, very often you'll give your horse a treat after that. But... you can also reward during training. It often helps to learn exercises with a treat as a reward. If you give your horse a treat if he gives the right response, he will link this behaviour to your command after a while. This way you can teach your horse a lot of tricks in a playful way. Overeager or excited horses can make mounting quite difficult for some riders. You can learn horses to bend their neck to your leg to get a treat. This works best if you are already in the saddle. Once your horse knows he's going to get a treat, he'll stand still and waits for the treat.
Sugar-free treats for horses
Gummy bears, a handful of M&M's or a bar of Tony Chocolonely, it's delicious, but also filled with high amounts of sugar! Same with horse snacks, which contain unhealthy ingredients such as sugars and grains. Every snack you give to your horse becomes part of his daily ration. These are all nutrients and possible sugars that your horse gets in addition to his daily feed. If you pay attention to your horse's diet so that he doesn't get overweight, you have to be more selective with the treats. With horses, just like with people, being overweight is not healthy. More and more horses in the Netherlands are becoming obese, which increases the risk of disorders such as insulin resistance. Fortunately, there are horse treats that are healthy and sugar-free. These treats are made from natural ingredients, which means they have a low sugar level.
Pavo's horse treats, what are they made of?
Guess what?! Horses love the Pavo Healthy Treats! They are made from 100% pure natural ingredients, without grains and artificial ingredients, additives, coloring and sweeteners. Most of these snacks are made of plant fibres, supplemented with carrots, apples and much more, depending on the taste! These snacks are suitable for every horse because of the low levels of sugar and starch. Even horses that are overweight or sensitive to sugar can be safely rewarded with these snacks. Every horse deserves a nice little snack once in a while!
Hay snack
Are you looking for a hay snack for your horse? Then the Pavo HayChunks are the perfect option! These are compressed -German herbal hey- rolls with the size of a soda can. The fun thing about Pavo HayChunks is that you can feed them in various ways, off the ground, or in the food manger, or a small hay net. The more challenging you make it for your horse reach them, the longer the fun!
Making your own horse treats
Getting a bag or bucket of horse treats in a store is of course very easy, and also not very expensive. But it's also super fun to make some treats yourself! Just take a bunch of natural ingredients, like apples, carrots or rolled oats and muesli, and get baking! Here's the homemade favourite of the Pavo team:
Ingredients:
- 150 grams of linseed oil
- 30 grams of sesame seeds
- 100 grams of sunflower seeds
- 1/5 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon dried Italian herbs
- 200 ml of water
Instructions:
Add all ingredients together in a large bowl
Add the water Stir well, then leave to rest for 20 minutes
Preheat the oven to 180 °C
Place a sheet of kitchen parchment on a baking tray and spread the mixture evenly over the parchment paper. Tip: Place an extra parchment paper on top and try to roll everything out evenly with a rolling pin (0.5 cm thick).
Then remove the extra parchment paper Place the baking tray in the oven and bake the horse treats for 20 minutes
Take the baking tray out of the oven and slice the horse treats into nice shapes; Tip: use a pizza cutter
Turn the horse treats off the baking paper and turn it over. The underside of the horse treats is still slightly moist, then bake them for another 10 minutes;
Then let the horse treats cool on a rack
It's snack time!
Please note! Homemade horse treats do not last as long as the ones from the stores! Would you like to store the homemade horse treats? Put them in the refrigerator and check them after a few days.
Want to buy healthy horse treats? Take a look at our product range!
If you find baking too much of a hassle, it's super easy to order them with us. Check out the
Pavo Healthy Treats! These treats are available in different flavours. Try them all out to see if your horse which one is your horses favourite; carrot, nettle, linseed or beetroot!
Treat your horse!