Part Two: Horsey Treats, à la "I See & Hear Nothing Else"

Like most horses, ours enjoy treats. Say the word, "Cookies!" with the right emphasis, and you will have the rapt (and physically close) attention of every one of our equine partners. Or just let them hear you open the "cookie jar".

In addition to store bought cookies, our horses' Aunt Kyle makes homemade cookies. She constantly tweaks recipes, but hasn't found one yet that the horses won't stop, drop or run over to get.

Like all treats, cookie intake is limited. No doubt, much too limited as far as our horses are concerned. Kenny is officially known as "Cookie Man" around our paddocks, and he is EXPECTED to provide a treat before leaving at the end of each night.

When no cookies are available, a few alfalfa cubes will substitute.

Considering their pelleted feed is alfalfa-based, we're amused at how eager they are for 2-3 more bites of alfalfa.

Carrots are a another favorite. We checked with our vet to confirm maximum safe carrot intake. :) While you may have trouble getting your children to eat carrots, our horses would eat all you would give them.

Interestingly, Devereaux wasn't too sure about carrots when he first arrived.

Apples either. It was only from watching the other horses get excited about them and a human eating samples under his nose that he decided they might be good.

Because they are SO sweet, apples are only allowed one/horse/day when they get them. We cut them in slices or offer them in bites so they can't choke by accidentally swallowing one whole.

That would certainly take the fun out of the treat, eh?

If you ever see Cormier looking like he is wearing pale frosted lipstick, he's just been eating peppermints.

While the highlight of Baraats for us may be the music, dancing and gorgeous saris, we're pretty sure for Cormier, it's the peppermints.

Who doesn't love melon balls? (Ok, maybe some of you don't, but our horses LOVE them.) And we even have a late night video of Elysian gingerly eating melon balls off a little plastic fork.

It's all the more hilarious in that his muzzle is the size of a medium-sized cantelope. Horse lips are amazing. He never so much as broke a fork tine. (You can see this video on our Facebook page--or just ask us to send you the link.)

All you horsey people probably have unusual treats your horses have loved ... and we want to hear about them!

We once had an Arabian that loved hush-puppies and orange push-ups.

Part One: "How much do you feed your horses?"

We often get asked how much our horses eat/drink. Even horsey people are sometimes surprised at the answers.

Here is the answer for our Percherons (our Norwegian, much to his little tubby dismay, get's MUCH less):

1) We drool over hay trucks on the highway like this.
GOOD HAY: 30-45 lbs daily per horse
12-13% protein, super clean, barn-stored Bermuda (Coastal or Tipton 85) grass hay - more in winter, less in summer; year-round, more for our highest-metabolism burner than our lowest one. Which are the best types of hay varies across the country. We can get very good Coastal here.

2) Is water a food? Yes!!!
CLEAN WATER: Between 10 and 35 gallons daily
The amount consumed depends on temperature/exercise and we watch each horse's individual consumption like a hawk. We top off 45 gallon containers of fresh water at home twice daily if necessary. They are emptied and scrubbed every 1-3 days as no dirt or algae is allowed in their water. We carry a 50 gallon drum of fresh water in our trailer, keep fresh water on our carriages for them at work, plus know all the faucets in downtown Austin!

3) BALANCED FEED: 9-13 lbs/day each (1 1/4 - 2 LARGE scoops twice daily) based on individual needs.
We feed a 14% protein, alfalpha-based, vitamin/mineral balanced pelleted equine feed. Our highest metabolism horse gets an additional 2 lbs/day (split in half) of 12% sweet feed mixed in to encourage him to finish the quantity of pelleted feed he needs.

[You have to be careful not to overfeed in a single feeding. We've fostered horses that were fed 3/times/day to get the number of calories in without risk of colic/laminitis.]

4) SUPPLIMENTS: Mineral salt blocks + other suppliments.
One of our Percherons receives hoof suppliments. Gradual (no more than 1/8 cup/day increase) vegetable oil is our preferred safe method of increasing calories in super cold winters (- risk of colic/laminitus from grain). Our Norwegian recieves joint suppliments.

So there you have it. Horses by the ton like to eat and drink by the ton! We like to keep ours healthy and happy so we are busy servers!