Can Horses Eat Bread?

I love baking, and I’m always making my own loaves of bread.

Sometimes, I must admit, I make too much and there’s more than we can eat.

I usually have friends and family I can give the excess bread to, but this week I was struggling for someone to give a fresh loaf too, and it was quickly going bad.

I began to wonder whether my horses would enjoy bread as a treat.

I’d never fed them bread before so I wasn’t sure, and I decided to look into it.

So, can horses eat bread?

Bread may seem harmless, but in actual fact it can cause many issues for a horse. It lacks the nutrients that a horse really needs and does not provide any valuable calories. Further still, it can cause major digestive pain and discomfort—you should avoid feeding your horse bread.

So, staple as it may be to our own diets, horses should never really eat bread.

In very small quantities it is likely to be fine, but if you’re looking for a treat there are plenty of great alternatives that pack more nutritional benefits without the risk of pain and indigestion.

Let’s look at the question in a bit more detail.

Is bread toxic to horses?

Bread is not inherently toxic to horses in the sense that it contains a compound that will poison your horse or make it ill.

However, it’s still a highly refined and processed food product, relatively speaking, and horses’ diets and digestive systems are simply much simpler than ours.

Most of what they eat will be grass, hay and forage, and the fiber from these foods will make up about 75% of their diet.

Bread, on the other hand, contains a lot of calories but very little nutritional value, at least for a horse. In your horse’s gut, any baked product can become a nasty, doughy mess that blocks up their digestive system and causes serious discomfort.

This is the major problem with bread: it will cause blockages that can lead to colic and diarrhea.

In small amounts, bread probably wouldn’t be a serious problem for your horse.

However, there’s still no real reason to feed it any amount of bread.

There are plenty of good, alternative treats and snacks.

Bread is of little nutritional value, and something like fresh fruits or vegetables would make a much better alternative.

Can horses eat white bread?

White bread is probably the most problematic.

It contains the least nutritional value and will be the most likely to cause digestive issues and gut blockages.

Whether it’s sliced or artisan bread, white bread is not good for your horse.

As I said, very small amounts would be unlikely to cause any issues, but there is still no real advantage to feeding any amount of bread to your horse.

Don’t feed white bread to your horses.

Can horses eat whole wheat bread?

Whole wheat is slightly higher in nutritional value than white bread, but it nonetheless poses all the same potential digestive problems.

Smaller amounts of bread containing seeds and grains may contain some reasonable amount of nutrition, but it would be better simply to get those seeds and grains directly into it diet.

Whole wheat bread still poses the issue of digestive trouble.

In your horse’s gut it will break down and become doughy, causing blockages, gas and discomfort.

These blockages can even lead to colic, which is a serious problem for horses.

Do horses like bread?

Horses have very individualized personalities, and some will have different tastes to others.

Most horses wouldn’t really enjoy bread, and probably won’t want to eat it much once they’ve tasted it.

That said, some horses may like it a lot once they’ve tried it.

So, what to do if your horse really likes this treat that’s not good for them?

Well, the same issues of caution still remain.

Just because the horse appears to enjoy eating bread doesn’t mean it won’t cause the same health problems.

Even if your horse seems to like bread, you still shouldn’t really feed them bread.

When horses only eat bread and hay, there are some major deficiencies in essential minerals and vitamins that they would normally get from fruits and vegetables.

Fruits and vegetables are much better for your horse as they are still high in calories and nutrients, while containing lots of helpful vitamins and minerals.

Your horse’s ideal diet should be a good balance of hay and fresh fruit and veg.

Bread for many of us makes up the cornerstone of our diets, and it’s hard sometimes to think we can’t share this food that we love with our horses.

The fact, is, though, that their digestive systems just aren’t equipped to deal with bread and dough, and simple as it may seem bread can cause so many issues for horses.

Not to mention, most horses probably wouldn’t be all that excited by the taste of bread.

There are plenty of healthier, tastier alternative treats to feed your horse.