Terrific Horse Treats

Do you like to bake your own horse treats for your equine friends? How about whipping up a batch of horse cookies for your favorite four-legged companion for Thanksgiving or Christmas?

(Photo used by permission.)

The holidays may be a particularly appropriate time for sharing treats with our horses.

Horse lovers may enjoy exchanging thoughtful presents with one another too. At our barn, some of us like to hang up stockings on our stalls – just in case Santa might stop by with peppermints, carrots, apples or horse treats. What could be more welcome in a horse's Christmas stocking than a bundle of home-baked horse cookies?

(Photo used by permission.)

My friend Gina, a horse lover and natural horsemanship enthusiast, was kind enough to share her own recipe for delicious horse cookies. Last week, she made these marvelous molasses morsels for her own herd, including her beloved buckskin, Cruiser (pictured here).

“The house smells of bubbling molasses,” Gina recounted, as her own horse cookies baked. “It makes me giggle to see the horses lined up outside looking up at the house with such longing ... like little kids waiting for the Toll House Cookies.”

With Gina’s permission, I’m posting the horse cookie recipe here (with links for purchasing organic ingredients). These treats are organic and even acceptable for human consumption – particularly for cookie dough snitchers.

“Here is the horse cookie recipe,” Gina said. “Please feel free to share it. These treats are amazing and so healthy!”

(Photo used by permission.)

Gina’s Horse Cookies

8 C Rolled Oats
3 C Wheat Bran
1C Flax Seed Meal
1C Flax Seeds
1C Barley (whole grain)
1C Bulgur Wheat
1C Corn Meal
1C TVP (textured vegetable protein)
1C Quinoia Flour
1C Oat Flour
1C Teff Flour
1C Kosher Salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F).

Mix all dry ingredients in a large bowl and divide the contents in half. Put half of the mixture into a mixmaster, and add these ingredients:

2.5 C Blackstrap Molasses
¼ C Vegetable Oil
¼ C Hot Water

(Sprinkle in a little more flour, if the mixture is too gooey.)

Mix well. Add remaining dry mixture, and continue mixing until fully blended.

Spray mini muffin tins with vegetable oil spray (such as Pam spray).

Put one tablespoon of the horse cookie batter into each space in the mini muffin tins.

Press mixture into spaces, and bake at 350 for 7-10 minutes.

Allow horse cookies to cool a bit in the pans. Then turn them out onto cooling racks.

Options:

• Add 2 cups of prepared Beet Pulp for those horses that can afford to add a few pounds.

• Add shredded carrots, apples, sunflower seeds or dried fruit, if desired.

• Add a bit more molasses and dark corn syrup to camouflage equine medicine doses, if needed.

• Add a bit of apple muffin mix to make treats that rise and look like little muffins.

Allow horse cookies to cool to a comfortable temperature before feeding them to horses.

Delicious horse treats for delightful horses!

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