# Watermelon and equines



## starjj

I feed my mule about one watermelon a month as a treat. I don't feed the whole watermelon at once it lasts about a week. My question is if you do this do you feed the rines? I cut the watermelon up and take the rine off and refigerate the pcs. Someone at work said it is ok to feed the rines but I am afraid they are too tough and will block her stomach or some such. Am I being wasteful?


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## dkrabec

I have fed the rinds to my horses for years as a treat and never had a problem, they chew them well, I don't give them large amounts but one or two at time and they love it.


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## where I want to

Me too with the rinds- no problem except one girl loves them and the other drops in it the dirt.


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## bergere

We eat the insides, the horse's eat the rinds.... no problem in all the years I have had horses.
However, those slobbering happy mouths,,, will like to use you .....as their napkin! LOL


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## SueMc

We have fed our horses and mules watermelon leftovers for years with out problems. The only issue here is having enough watermelon for the equine and chickens. 
I just discovered the other day that my mules and horses love zucchini also. I threw some old ones in the pasture instead of the chicken area (chickens were in the pasture) and the horses beat them to it.


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## starjj

Thanks for the replies. Since I don't like watermelon (I know I am weird) she gets it all. I did take some rind out for her and she liked it BUT not as well as the insides.


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## oregon woodsmok

Just make the rind in pieces that are either too big to swallow, or too small to choke on.

If you give large pieces, the horse (or mule) will bite off safe size pieces. If you give small pieces, they can be swallowed with no problem.

I suspect that watermelon rind is the number 1 favorite horse treat of all times.


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## GoldenJoe

I had no idea......I just gave zuchinni and watermelon to the chickens.....our horse likes bananas. I think the previous owner fed the peel and all....I just feed the banana--talk about slobbery and noisy.....I thought I was raising a piglet for a second....


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## AJohnston

We had a watermelon go bad, it was nice and squishy... I took the entire watermelon out to our five horses and threw it into the pasture. I tossed it over my head and it hit the ground hard enough that it busted and scattered. It took them all about 30 minutes to consume the watermelon, rind and all. Its a tasty treat, especially when its cold from the refrigerator.


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## hoggie

Would never,ever have occurred to me to give the ponies watermelon - will have to try them on some next time we have one


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## starjj

hoggie said:


> Would never,ever have occurred to me to give the ponies watermelon - will have to try them on some next time we have one



I knew about it because when I was in HS I use to ride a gelding that the ONLY way you could catch him out of the pasture was to come to the fence with watermelon either that or wait until he was dozing in the barn and capture him in there. Boy was he a pain to catch.


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## MOgal

How interesting! The one and only time my horse colicked in the many years I had him was when my father fed him watermelon rind. We had to have the vet out to tube him and I walked and walked this horse to keep him from rolling. My vet said to never feed something to a horse that makes humans burp. So, either I had an odd horse or was just unlucky that time. I refer to him as my horse because while others came and went, he stayed his entire life.

The goats and chickens love zucchini and I have a goat named Cucumber because that's her favorite treat.


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## AJohnston

I never had trouble with colic horses... That actually used to be our one year gift to the horses at the boarding facility when we had our horses staying there. We would go down to the store and pick up some small watermelons and the people that owned the facility would help us go around and distribute them to all of the horses. A couple of the horses would actually put their foot on the watermelons and crack them open themselves to eat them, they loved them so much.


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## DamnearaFarm

I cut all our watermelons into eights and slice the melon from the rind so our rinds are always large almost triangles. We toss them into the field or hand them off to the horses. Only one of them won't bite it from the ground. He likes to take his in his mouth and flop it up and down until it breaks. Then he picks up the larger pieces and does it again.


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