Tell me about peppermints!
On the daily schedule, it said they feed him carrots, apples or peppermints in the morning. I saw that lots of people were also sending him peppermints.
What kind of peppermints do you feed to horses? Are they like little red/white striped "Starlight" mints hard candy? Or are there special "horse peppermints"? I assume it's OK for horses eat them, obviously - but it seems like such a funny thing. Is it like the lumps of sugar we non-horse people also think horses like to eat?
I guess I'm asking - is this OK for their teeth, lol?
Peppermints in reasonable quantity (a handful a day) isn't going to hurt anybody. Most people give 'em the ordinary Starlight mints (unwrap them first please!) The popular wisdom used to be that feeding a horse sugar or peppermints would "give him worms." Obviously that's not true.
If a horse is a little pushy, feeding him peppermints may make him tend to nip, but that's true of any hand feeding. I've never heard of sugar giving a horse tooth decay - there's plenty of sugar in sweet feed, it's loaded with molasses. Most of the dietary supplements have a molasses base to make them palatable.
My mare doesn't like peppermints - she'll run them around in her mouth for awhile, then drop them on the floor.
What she likes is these:
She'll run over you for one if you're not careful. My dog likes them too. Mostly oatmeal, chopped carrots, and molasses.