How to Trick Your Horse Into Eating Supplements

Horses may need supplements to achieve a balanced diet or for other health-related reasons. Supplements are the equivalent of vitamins for humans. They may contain vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins, herbs, or other botanicals to make up for a deficiency in a horse's diet. Vitamin E is a common supplement for performance horses. Supplements usually come in powder or pellet form and seem to be as appealing to horses as vitamins are to humans. As with humans, if you can make the medicine taste good, or disguise it, the horse is more likely to eat it.

Things You'll Need

  • Dietary supplements for horses
  • Spoon
  • Bucket or feed trough
  • Sweet feed or molasses, applesauce, apple cider vinegar, beet pulp, or flavored gelatin
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Instructions

    • 1

      Mix the supplement, whether in powder or pellet form, with sweet feed. This will get most horses to eat it.

    • 2

      Switch from powders to pellets or vice versa. Sometimes just a change in form will trick a horse--for a while, at least.

    • 3

      Try a flavored supplement product designed for horses that won't eat the plain ones.

    • 4

      Mix the supplement with the horse's grain and a few tablespoons of oil or water. This makes it harder for the horse to leave the powder behind.

    • 5

      Mix the supplement and some grain with a small amount of applesauce, apple cider vinegar, molasses or flavored gelatin.

    • 6

      Soak some beet pulp in water and add the supplements to it. Some horses like beet pulp and it absorbs the supplements.