Flavour Favourites

A very interesting experiment was carried out a while back in relation to horses and their taste buds. The test was carried out on horses in the United Kingdom and was carried out in order to establish what flavours horses favourited. You would assume it would be carrots...right!? Prepare to be surprised...

The test began with 8 equine tasters eating unflavoured pellets of cereal origin. Two of the horses found these pellets completely unappealing and did not finish their meal.

Over the next several days, the horses were given a portion of feed in concentrate form (so that the texture remained the same throughout the experiment) in 15 different flavours, which featured flavours such as fruits, herbs and vegetables.

Out of the 15 flavours sampled 3 got rejected by some of the testers. The remaining dozen flaours were approved by all the horses. Eight flavours in particular got gobbled up extremely fast. Further testing revealed that it was Fenugreek that was the overall favourite. This was followed by banana, cherry, rosemary and cumin. Carrot, surprisingly, came in 6th place! Peppermint was 7th followed by oregano taking 8th place.

The researchers who carried out this experiment based their results on how quickly and how much of the feed was eaten. So not super scientific but does gives a fair idea of horse's favourite flavours :)

I find the results of this experiment particularly interesting as I would have assumed the favourite was going to be carrots! I wouldn't have even guessed that fenugreek would of been an option? I've tried giving my horses bananas before and they just didn't seem quite sure of them .... but then there was also apples on offer! Perhaps apples are a favourite over bananas and fenugreek? Definitely something I'll have to offer them in the future and see how we get on :)


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