Mini horses are great additions to the family whether you only have minis or have regular sized horses well. You want to keep them happy and around for a long time as they can live up to 30+ years old. Their diet and treats will become a huge part of whether they live a long and healthy life or not.
So can mini horses eat celery?
Yes miniature horses can have celery, but can’t guarantee they will like. But overall celery is a great treat for minis as it is low sugar and low calorie and studies show it actually is a zero calorie food when you take into account the calories burned digesting it.
There are many different treats out there to give your horse everyt
hing from carrots to apples, but don’t forget something like celery as it is a great healthy food to give your mini.
We love minis but don’t just take our word for it we have gone out and gathered information from other owners on this matter and brought that information to this one place for you.
The information has been curated from several different horse websites and forums. We have changed grammar and spelling where needed but the answers have remained the same.
Feeding Celery To Mini’s
Real Mini Owner Opinions
1. HosssCrazy “Celery great treat when cutup” –
As you know, carrots are sugar! Good alternatives are celery (cut up) – they love it! Also sugar free candies can be good treats as well.
Glad to hear things are going well with your Diva!
Liz N.
2. CrazyHorse “Small bite sized healthy snacks” – Celery!!! Cut it into small bite size pieces – it’s safe for Cushings/IR horses and most horses love it!
3. TinyPony “Some health reports on it” – Just a note on the celery sticks: Not too big a deal, but celery has been known to cause health issues in many different animals due to the “strings” in the stalks. One giraffe at a local petting zoo choked and died on it. My vet says no for my horses but I am not aware of any specific horse related problems. I doubt it is harmful, but I may be considered over-cautious.
4. Jill “Takes more energy to burn” – I wouldn’t actually use celary as a treat for animals. From what I understand, it actually takes more energy to digest it that the calories it contains (which can make it good diet food for people, but not so sure on our four legged friends).
5. AngC “Acquired taste” – I read here that it was a possible horse treat and just thought I would share my results based on a limited number of test subjects; it didn’t go over too well. Perhaps, it’s an acquired taste for a horse?
Rather than compost a couple pounds, I dressed some up with cheese, onions, and such and tried to unload it on my mostly vegetable-eating husband, he made polite noises and stopped short of spitting it out. …hmmm, maybe I’ll try to unload it on the neighbor’s goat next.
6. ChocoMare “Shouldn’t be a problem” – If it’s in chunks, the stringiness of celery shouldn’t be a problem. It’s a pretty benign veggie. One of the reasons why it’s a Freebie on Weight Watchers for people
7. SlPeders “Great for IR horses” – My IR mare got celery and parsley for ‘fresh’ treats after she was diagnosed. I think it would be a great “juicy” snack for an endurance horse. I also used the items offered by Skodes
8. HooPoe “Why not peanut butter as well” – OMG celery and peanut butter, if the horse likes it, what a way to hide meds.
I have never tried it
My old horse loves bananas. Had one that ate orange peels
9. HungarianHippo “Mine Love Celery” – Mine LOVE celery, totally love it. Bananas too. They even like leftover salad that has italian dressing. Pretty much any vegetable matter, except asparagus
10. ZakAttack “Fine for them to eat” – I had a debate with a co-worker who said that she never feeds celery because those stringy parts can make them choke. I disagreed, saying it was fine for them to eat it. If they can eat hay without choking I can’t imagine celery would be a problem!
11. LuvMYHackney “Mine will spit it out” – Mine will take a bite and spit it out, then get an angry face. Then he smells whatever else I give him. He loves granola bars and rice crispy treats though.
Final Thoughts
There are some mixed opinions on celery, but overall it seems to be a great treat to be included in horses diets. That is if they will eat it so I would start with a small batch try to feed it to them whole then if they don’t like it cut it up into small pieces.
There was a mention of hiding it in peanut butter for medicine however we have looked further into this and peanut butter is a big no no for horses. It can cause abdominal and digestive issues. There is sugar and other toxic ingredients in most peanut butters. This also goes for dogs as well so you can get specialized peanut butters for them.
Celery in our opinion is one of the best treats you can give an overweight mini horse as there are numerous reports out there that state that celery is actually a negative calorie food since it takes more to burn it then whats actually in it.
Try this out along with other healthy mini horse snacks. If it has starch or sugar in it make sure you do so in moderation so you don’t cause your mini to become obese. As always make sure your mini is getting lots of water 2.5+ gallons a day along with 1lb of hay or forage 2-3 times a day.
If your mini is very active you can always increase your treats you give them especially when it comes to things such as apples or carrots that are higher in sugar. With minis that are more active they will burn more calories so you can give them more things such as sweet feed.
