Cooking Apples

[CrisO]

Someone at the yard asked me the other day if horses could be fed Bramley (cooking) apples. My first thought was the odd piece might be OK but as they are quite acidic could upset stomachs if fed in larger amounts so I wouldn't. but I wasn't really sure. Anyone got any thoughts?

 

[becs]

Hope so - ours have had one sliced in their tea every day for 2 winters!

I don't see how the acidity differs to other apple types.

Any apple is harmful in large amounts if given entirely - the pips contain tiny amounts of cyanide; a cup of pips is toxic to humans for example. But if you fed them that much, they'd probably get colic anyway.

They are quite sharp in flavour though (obviously) and our aged NF pony spits them out and rejects them...

 

[Alfies-slave]

There are apple trees dropping apples in to my horses field. The apples are cookers & v. bitter. The horses went mad for them when they first started to fall. Now they are ignoring them! Too much of a good thing!

I have kept my horses in the field for 10 years and never had a problem with them having ad lib apples!