Can Horses Eat Celery? Harmful or Beneficial

Celery is healthy for humans, but is it good for horses too? Something that many horse fanciers ponder over. It’s a usual question, especially when you know that some vegetables are good for humans but harmful for horses. It is okay to be conscious of your horse diet. However, with a little research, you can find the right answer and peace of mind. Anyways, I was wondering if I can add celery to my horse diet and is it safe? I found fascinating details on this topic.

Can horses eat celery? Yes, horses can eat celery. In fact, celery stem and roots are also edible. Celery contains a variety of vitamins and minerals that are essential for horse health. It is necessary to feed only farm fresh celery, free of parasites and insecticides. Just as other vegetables and fruits, celery must be cut and fed in limited quantity. Feeding celery in excessive quantity can lead to health issues.

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Celery Is Good For Horses

Celery contains vitamin-K, vitamin-C,vitamin-B6, vitamin-A, vitamin-E, folate, pantothenic acid, riboflavin, thiamine, potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, copper, zinc, and dietary fiber. As it is nutritious, it can be used for overcoming multiple vitamin and mineral deficiencies in horses.

Celery is enriched with folate, which helps in the formation of red and white blood cells and also transforms carbohydrates into energy. Besides, fiber is an essential part of a horse diet as it helps with food digestion. It can be used for enriching horse diet with fiber. Furthermore, celery contains low sugar which is good for horse health.

Apart from the nutritional benefits of celery, it can be used for feeding medicines. Yes, you read it right! Certain medicines have bad taste and horses, being choosy about taste often reject medicine-added treats. But celery has a strong taste, and it can easily cover up the taste of light medicine.

Improper Feed

Fortunately, all parts of the celery are edible and healthy for horses. But still, celery must be cut in pieces before feeding. This is because, some horse love celery so much that they can eat loads of celery in a single bite, without chewing it; which sometimes lead to choking. Furthermore, Horse fanciers recommend feeding a maximum of 2 pounds of celery at a time.

Celery is healthy and beneficial as long as it is fresh and clean. Most of the celery farms use parasite sprays and fertilizers which often stick on celery leaves. It is essential to wash celery carefully as such sprays and fertilizers can be toxic for horses.

What To Do If Your Horse Rejects Celery?

Some horses do not like celery as much as others. This is mostly because of its strong taste and unique flavor, but there can be other reasons too. If your horse is rejecting celery, you can skip celery from his diet and try again after a few days.

Furthermore, you can also try hand feeding celery, one leave at a time. Horses love to eat from their caretaker’s hand. If it works, keep hand feeding for a few days until your horse develops celery taste. Besides, this practice will also help you in creating a strong bond with your animal.

How to Feed?

There are some precautions you should keep in mind while feeding celery to the horse. Cut into small pieces after washing. Large pieces of celery cause choking so wash and cut in pieces to prevent. Dust or any other foreign harmful component on celery is also harmful. Wash it before feeding.

The excess of everything is bad. Always feed in a reasonable quantity. You can feed by your hand but keep your hand out of the champing range.