We always hear about how horses love carrots more than just about any other food.
So, if a horse got loose into a garden or field where carrots are being grown, would the horse “know” to dig them up? Or would that be too foreign to the horse’s normal methods of finding and eating food?
Would a horse be able to “dig” them up? I suspect that having the tasty, juicy bit growing underground is one way plants are defended against grazing animals. Pigs on the other hand can graze and root – I’ve seen first hand what happens when pigs get in a turnip field! And horses can indulge their love for apples by eating them staight off the tree.
Horses have a good sense of smell, so they could easily locate carrots by smell. Plus the carrot greens are just as tasty to a horse. And horses can root, too – they can do a bit of digging with their hooves, enough to expose the top part of the carrot so they can grab it with their teeth.
Horses like most root crops, not just carrots. Rutabegas, turnips, beets (especially sugar beets), even potatoes. (Though the potato plants aren’t as attractive as carrot or turnip greens.)
P.S. I’m not sure about the OP statement “horses love carrots more than just about any other food.” Most horses love carrots, but I’ve not really seen that they love them more than other foods. Horses can eat & thrive on a wide range of vegetation, but they, like humans, tend to like the most the food that they are most used to eating.
The one food that they “love” (or perhaps ‘crave’ would be a better word) is salt. Horses will abandon other foods to go for a salt block, and will fight over salt.
After that, favorites seem to be foods with a sweet component: apples, fresh sweet corn & sweet corn shucks, sugar beet pulp, plums, grapes, etc.
After that come all the grains & grasses, pretty much interchangably.
Heck yeah. My mini actually dug through her shavings and found the old patches of discarded hay in her paddock to snack on within hours of her arrival. (We converted a paddock and shelter back into a paddock and shelter after it’d been used for hay storage, so there was plenty of the stuff still around despite the cleaning up).
Both of my horses literally drool at the sound of carrots being broken in half, and the scent alone will send them hunting for the treats. Very handy when you’re training them not to spook at, oh, plastic bags–just put a bunch of carrots in plastic bags and hang them on the stall bars, and voila! Suddenly it ain’t so scary, is it?
Potato greens are toxic to humans. Are they safe for horses?
…and of course, carrots.
It seems that their tastes are much like those of rabbits. Years ago we had a pet rabbit who lived on our balcony, and it was a hoot to watch her eating a carrot complete with greens. She’d start at the green end, and just stay in one spot as first the green part went, and then the root, almost as if she was “sucking” it down.
She loved apples too, and especially roses. I don’t think there were even any thorns left when she was done eating a rose.
Yes, they can be, if eaten in large enough quantities. (And the quantity needed to hurt a horse is much larger than for a human.)
But I’ve never heard of a horse eating that much of potato greens, because they apparently don’t taste that good. The cases I’ve heard of had horses getting loose and into a vegetable garden, and they seemed to find lots of things in the garden more attractive than the potato greens.