Can Horses Eat Quinoa?

My family have been very much on a ‘superfoods’ binge recently.

I’m always up for trying new things, so I’ve been open to it, but we’ve been eating some seriously weird foods.

Most of it is really good, although cooking with some of it has been a bit of a learning curve, to say the least.

One thing we’ve been eating a lot of is quinoa, and I think it’s my favorite!

It’s always good to try new things, and this was no different.

I always want to share new foods with my horses, so I decided to check if it was safe.

So, can horses eat quinoa?

Yes, horses can eat quinoa. Quinoa is packed with many nutritional benefits which will be great for your horse, and horses almost always love quinoa! It’s important that you keep moderation in mind, though, as overfeeding can become a problem quite quickly. It should only be an occasional treat.

The simple answer, then, is that quinoa is great for horses.

I’ll get into the specifics soon, but the fact is that this is one of the superfoods that really lives up to its name.

It’s tasty, healthy, and so versatile—so let’s see what horses think.

Is quinoa good for horses?

Yes, in lots of ways!

For one thing, seeds like quinoa are great for sprouting an enzyme boost.

They come with all sorts of healthy microbiomes that support the overall health of your horse.

It’s also rich in fiber, which is perhaps the most essential part of a horse’s diet.

Fiber is the most important thing for healthy digestion, and most a horse’s diet should be fiber from grass and hay.

A bit of extra in the rest of their diet will only be a good thing.

Quinoa is also rich in antioxidants, which prevent oxidative stress in the cells.

It’s very nutrient rich, in any case, and so you don’t need to eat very much of it to get the full benefits.

You can also find many nutritional minerals in quinoa, such as manganese, magnesium and phosphorous.

These minerals serve a variety of  functions in the body, but overall they keep the immune system happy and properly functioning and keep the blood healthy.

So, quinoa is great for horses in many ways.

It’s not quite a cereal grain, but in general horses love cereal grains and similar foods.

However, it is not without caveats that we suggest quinoa is totally safe for your horse.

Is quinoa bad for horses?

Inherently, no, quinoa is not bad for horses.

Problems will begin to arise, though, if you feed your horse too much quinoa.

As you can imagine, for an animal like a horse that spends most of its time eating grass and hay, something as nutrient rich as quinoa can overload the system quite rapidly.

If you feed your horse too much quinoa, they will have trouble digesting and breaking it down.

This can lead to pain and diarrhea.

As a rule of thumb, you should provide your horse with some kind of extra treat each day.

So, for quinoa, you should really only give to them once or twice a week.

Not only will this protect them from overeating, but they won’t get bored, either.

So, as long as you use common sense, quinoa will never be bad for your horse.

Can horses eat raw quinoa?

Yes, they can, and this is usually the best way to feed things to your horse.

You should imagine that the food you provide should be as close an imitation of the diet it would have in the wild as possible.

With that in mind, they would not have access to cooked quinoa.

Granted, they wouldn’t have access to any kind of quinoa in most places, but the point remains.

So, just give them some quinoa to eat from a cup or bucket.

They may not eat all that much, but this is still the best way to feed it to them.

Can horses eat cooked quinoa?

While there’s nothing unsafe about feeding horses cooked quinoa most of the time, they will get much better nutritional benefits from raw quinoa.

Cooked will lose a lot of the nutrition, not to mention it won’t taste as good to them.

Cooked quinoa, if it came from something made for people, could also contain cooking ingredients not ideal for a horse. so, where possible, just feed your horse raw quinoa.

It will be better than cooked.  

So, however it’s prepared it will be fine and comes with all sorts of nutritional benefits.

It is so nutrient rich that feeding your horse small amounts of quinoa once or twice a week is plenty to start noticing the health benefits for yourself.

As long as you keep moderation in mind, quinoa will make a great addition to your horse’s diet that it will love for years to come.