Horse Cookie Recipe

Tessa is a very food focused horse. She sees or hears food coming a mile away! As soon as someone crumples a bag, her ears perk up, her neck lifts, and she starts moving her head side to side. For those of you who do not know, horses are prey animals and as such are designed to have fantastic peripheral vision. They do not see well straight ahead and have a blind spot right in front of them. When they try to focus on something directly in front of them they move their heads from side to side to see it better.

With Tessa, it does not matter if it is me with the treats or someone riding a different horse. She is excited either way. The other riders think she is cute so they give her a treat to make her happy and to reward her ability to scent, hear, or see treats.

I love food focused animals! I find they are generally easier to train and it makes me really happy to make them happy by doing something as simple as giving them a piece of food. I also love animals who enjoy a good scratch. Actually, I love animals, point final.

In July, I was buying carrots for Tessa but I was having trouble using them all before they started to rot. The weather was so hot and I could not keep them in good condition long enough. I decided to buy horse cookies instead. I found a great brand at the local tack shop. Tessa loved these cookies and so did all of the horses that I gave the treats to. The only issue was that the cookies were expensive. Instead of buying another bag of these treats, I decided to try and find a recipe online that had similar ingredients.

It did not take long to find a recipe with molasses, bran, and oatmeal. Yummy Oat Cookies fit the bill. My first try at the cookies was a little watery and the batch was too large. I decided to make some modifications to the recipe. Here is my version:




1/4 Cup Rolled Oats
1/4 Cup Steel Cut Oats
1/2 Cup Bran Cereal
1/4 Cup Molasses
1/4 Cup Water
1 tbsp Brown Sugar
1 tbsp Salt




Spray a cookie sheet with vegetable oil. Set the oven to 350F. Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl until the bran absorbs most of the water and molasses. Use a teaspoon to layout a bunch of little cookie mounds on the cookie sheet. Bake in the oven for 8 minutes. Take them out, flip them, and bake for another 5 minutes. There should be about 13-15 cookies.

With less salt, these cookies are also good for humans. I've munched on them. My dog also loves them and will do tonnes of tricks for a piece of horse cookie. Most importantly, Tessa is a big fan of my cookies! When she thinks I am not looking, I sometimes find her sniffing through my riding bag trying to find them. If I forget them or run out she still tries to drag me to my bag to find them.

 
Unlike my bug spray recipe, these cookies are definitely more economical than buying a bag of horse treats. As an aside, my homemade bug spray is still 3/4 full so it appears that though it was less obvious, I did end up saving money on bug spray by making my own.