Can Horses Eat Bananas Safely? A Guide for Horse Owners

Can horses eat bananas? Yes — bananas are safe for horses to eat in sensible quantities, skin included, and most horses enjoy them. They are a useful high-potassium treat and a handy way to hide a supplement or a wormer. But bananas are also high in sugar, and there are specific horses that should never be offered them at all.

This guide covers what you actually need to know before feeding bananas to your horse: how much is safe, which horses should avoid them, how to introduce them, and how bananas compare with the other fruit treats horse owners most commonly ask about.

Are Bananas Good for Horses?

Bananas are a safe, nutritious treat for most healthy horses. A medium banana (about 120 g without the skin) delivers:

• Around 105 kcal of energy
• 422 mg potassium — useful for muscle and nerve function
• 0.4 mg vitamin B6 — supports protein metabolism
• 10 mg vitamin C — horses produce their own but tired or sick animals can benefit
• 3 g fibre
• 14 g sugar — the key number to keep an eye on

In small quantities these are unambiguously positive. The potassium and B6 are genuinely useful for horses in hard work or hot weather; the soft texture and sweet taste make bananas one of the most successful “hiders” for bitter oral medications.

The Sugar Question

Roughly 12 % of a banana’s weight is sugar. That is higher than a carrot (about 4.7 %) and similar to an apple (10 %). For a healthy, working horse a banana or two a week is inconsequential. For a laminitic, insulin-resistant or overweight horse, the sugar is enough to matter. We return to this below.

How Many Bananas Can a Horse Eat?

As a rough guide for a 500 kg adult horse in normal work:

Treats in general should never exceed roughly 1–2% of a horse’s daily ration by weight. For a 500 kg horse eating 10 kg of feed per day, that is 100–200 g of treats total — the weight of one banana.

Can Horses Eat Banana Peels?

Yes. The skin is the most nutritionally dense part of the fruit — higher in fibre and plant compounds than the flesh — and horses will usually eat the whole banana with no fuss. Many yards simply hand the whole fruit over without peeling.

Two sensible precautions:

• Wash the skin if you can. Non-organic bananas are routinely sprayed with fungicides, and residues can sit on the peel. Imported organic bananas are widely available in UK supermarkets.
• Cut the stalk off. The small, woody stalk at the top is fibrous and can be a choke risk, especially for a greedy horse.

Can Horses Eat Green Bananas?

In principle yes, but ripe is better. Green, unripe bananas are high in resistant starch which is harder for a horse to digest and slightly more likely to cause gas or mild digestive upset. Stick to yellow, ripe or slightly spotty bananas. Very over-ripe black bananas are fine but become messy and attract flies quickly.

Can Horses Eat Bananas Every Day?

For most horses in regular work, a banana a few times a week is fine — but daily bananas is more than they need. Horses are hindgut fermenters designed for grass and hay, not sugar. Keep fruit treats occasional, rotate through carrots, apples and bananas rather than defaulting to one, and always feed them as an addition to, not a substitute for, adequate forage.

Which Horses Should Not Eat Bananas?

Bananas are not safe for every horse. Avoid them, or feed only on veterinary advice, if your horse has:

Laminitis or a History of Laminitis

Horses with laminitis are extremely sensitive to sugar and starch. Bananas contain enough simple sugars to trigger or worsen an episode in a susceptible horse. Stick to a low-sugar balancer and soaked hay, and skip fruit treats entirely.

Equine Metabolic Syndrome (EMS)

Horses with equine metabolic syndrome, Cushing’s disease (PPID) or insulin dysregulation should avoid bananas. Even a single banana can spike blood insulin enough to damage the laminae over time.

Overweight Horses and Native Ponies

Good-doer natives — Shetlands, Welsh Mountain Ponies, Exmoors, Highlands, Fells, Dales — gain weight on air. A banana slipped in over the fence by a friendly passer-by can be the difference between a comfortable summer and a laminitic one. If your pony is overweight, skip fruit treats completely.

Horses with a Sugar-Sensitive Condition

Horses with PSSM (polysaccharide storage myopathy), equine recurrent uveitis, recent colic episodes, or those on a strict veterinary diet should only be given bananas with the vet’s agreement.

Foals Under Six Months

Young foals are still establishing a functional hindgut. Stick to milk and the dam’s feed until weaning, then introduce hard feed gradually. There is no nutritional reason to give fruit to a foal.

How to Safely Feed Bananas to a Horse

Simple rules keep the experience positive for both horse and owner:

1. Introduce gradually. Start with a slice no bigger than a £2 coin. Watch for any sign of digestive upset over the following 24 hours before offering more.
2. Cut into manageable pieces. A whole banana can be gulped and become a choke risk. Slices of 2–3 cm reduce that risk and are easier to share as training rewards.
3. Feed from a bucket or flat palm. Feeding from a flat hand, not fingers, avoids nipped fingers — especially with greedy youngsters. For well-mannered horses a treat from the hand is fine; for pushy ones, feed from a bucket to reinforce boundaries.
4. Never throw bananas into the field. Horses eating food off the ground can easily swallow grit, which contributes to sand colic.
5. Remove the stalk. It is woody, low-value and occasionally a choke risk.
6. Keep treats rare. The biggest mistake with bananas is frequency, not portion size. A treat loses its value as a reward — and starts causing weight or metabolic problems — as soon as it becomes routine.

Hiding Medication in a Banana

Bananas are one of the most effective tools for getting a stubborn horse to accept bitter medication or paste wormers. Their sweet, slightly sticky flesh masks taste better than carrots or apples.

1. Split the banana lengthways with a clean knife
2. Crush or squeeze the tablet or paste into the flesh
3. Press the banana back together and feed by hand
4. Follow with a plain banana piece as a “clean” reward

For horses that have become wise to this trick, a mashed banana mixed into a small portion of chaff or a damp balancer is often enough to carry the medication through.

Can You Feed Bananas to Someone Else’s Horse?

No — and this is worth saying plainly. Feeding another person’s horse without the owner’s permission is one of the quickest ways to cause serious harm. You cannot know if the horse has laminitis, Cushing’s, EMS, colic history, food allergies, a restricted diet, or is on medication that interacts with fruit. At livery yards across the UK, unauthorised treats over the fence are a documented cause of preventable colic and laminitis episodes every year. If you want to feed someone else’s horse, ask first.

Other Fruits Horses Can Eat

Horses can safely enjoy a range of fruits in small amounts. Popular safe treats include:

• Apples — a classic, but cut to avoid choke and remove the core (pips contain trace cyanide compounds)
• Pears — similar to apples, peel not essential
• Strawberries — safe in small handfuls
• Watermelon — flesh and rind, very low sugar, good in hot weather
• Blueberries and raspberries — safe, but a little expensive for regular use
• Grapes — safe in small amounts, remove from the stem
• Mango — safe without the large stone
• Carrots and parsnips — not fruit, but sit in the same treat category

Fruits and Foods Horses Should Never Eat

Some common foods are toxic or dangerous and should be kept well away from horses:

• Stone fruits with the pit intact (peaches, plums, cherries, avocados)
• Tomatoes, potatoes and any member of the nightshade family (solanine poisoning)
• Onions, garlic and leeks in quantity (haemolytic anaemia)
• Chocolate, caffeine and any human baked goods
• Bread and pastry (ferments in the hindgut, contributes to colic)
• Rhubarb and rhubarb leaves (oxalic acid)
• Mouldy hay or any mouldy food
• Grass cuttings from a lawnmower — a major colic risk, even though fresh grass is fine

For a wider look at equine nutrition and feeding practice, see our guides on feeding horses 101, horse body condition scoring, and buttercup poisoning.

Final Thoughts

For a healthy horse in regular work, a banana is one of the easiest, cheapest, cleanest treats you can offer — and a genuinely useful tool for hiding medication. The rules are simple: small amounts, not every day, never to a metabolically compromised horse, and always with the owner’s permission. Keep bananas occasional and they stay a reward; make them routine and they become a risk factor.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can horses eat bananas safely?

Yes — ripe bananas, skin included, are safe for most healthy horses when fed occasionally in small amounts. Limit to one or two bananas a few times a week, and avoid them completely for horses with laminitis, Equine Metabolic Syndrome, Cushing’s or insulin resistance.

Can horses eat banana skins?

Yes. Banana peel is safe and is actually more nutrient-dense than the flesh. Wash the skin if possible to remove pesticide residue, and cut off the woody stalk to reduce choke risk.

How many bananas can a horse eat per day?

For a 500 kg horse in normal work, one to two medium bananas per day is the upper limit of sensible treat size — and best given no more than three or four times a week. Ponies and small horses should receive half that amount. Metabolically compromised horses should have none.

Are bananas bad for laminitic horses?

Yes. Bananas contain around 12 % sugar by weight, which is enough to trigger or worsen a laminitis episode in a susceptible horse. Horses with a history of laminitis, EMS or Cushing’s should avoid bananas and other high-sugar fruits entirely.

Can horses eat green bananas?

They can, but ripe yellow bananas are easier to digest. Green bananas contain more resistant starch and are slightly more likely to cause mild digestive upset. Ripe to slightly over-ripe is the ideal stage.

What fruits should horses never eat?

Avoid avocados, stone fruits with the pit in place, tomatoes and other nightshades, onions, garlic, rhubarb, chocolate and any mouldy food. Also never let a horse eat lawn-mower grass clippings — even though fresh grass is safe, fermenting clippings cause serious colic.

Can foals eat bananas?

Foals under six months should stick to milk and appropriate feed. Once weaning is complete, small fruit treats can be introduced gradually in the same way as for an adult horse — small portions, well tolerated before increasing.

For more horse care guides, see our categories on horse care and horse advice.