Horse Popsicles – Easy DIY Summer Treat!

When the summer days heat up, try these diy popsicles for horses. Horse popsicles are a cold and tasty treat that our horses love! They are very easy to make and you can use a variety of different fruits and veggies.

Helping Horses Beat the Heat

As the summer months roll along, the heat and humidity seem to rise with every passing day. Our horses and ponies often bear the brunt of the heat and everything that entails. They spend their days seeking shade from the hot sun, swatting incessantly at flies with their tails, etc.

We always make sure that our animals have plenty of water and shade to hide under. We also let them graze at night when the sun is down and the bugs aren’t as vicious.

My daughter loves to give her pony a sponge bath or hose her off after a warm weather ride.

We are always looking for different ways to keep the animals cool in the summer.

This week we made them a big horse popsicle for the first time and it was a HUGE hit!  ALL of our guys and gals just went wild for it and spent the afternoon taking nibbles and bites.

DIY Horse Popsicles Ingredients

We made the simplest version of horse popsicles ever. You can use other fruit and veggies, just make sure you are only using foods that are safe for horses to consume. We used regular water in our bucket. You can opt to add electrolytes if you want (if you are concerned that your horses need them).

Here is what we used:

• Apples (cored and sliced)
• Carrots (chopped, or use baby carrots)
• Water

We used a 2 gallon bucket to hold our popsicle in the freezer.

How to Make Horse Popsicles

Follow these directions step-by-step to make your own frozen treats for horses:

1. Grab your bucket. We used a 2 gallon bucket which is a bit smaller than the standard 5 gallon water bucket we have in each horse’s stall. The smaller size is perfect for this treat. It makes a big popsicle that serves several horses. It will also save you some time waiting for it to freeze. Even with this smaller bucket, you will still need to wait a day for it to fully freeze.

2. Gather your rinsed and chopped fruit and veggies. I used apple slices and baby carrots.

3. Dump the fruit and veg into your bucket.

4. Fill bucket with water. I filled my bucket almost to the top but not quite all the way. I knew that I would have to carry the bucket to the basement freezer and didn’t want to slosh water all over the house in the process.

You might notice that the carrots will sink to the bottom and the apples will float to the top! I have seen some versions of these treats where people use ice cubes to layer the foods. You can try that if you’d like!

5. Place the bucket on a level surface in your freezer. Leave the bucket in the freezer until all of the water is frozen solid. Our bucket took 24 hours to freeze all the way through.

6. When you are ready to share this cool treat with your herd, remove the bucket from the freezer. If the day is super hot, the outside of the bucket might heat up just enough to thaw the sides and allow the popsicle to slide out. If not and it’s stuck, simply spray the outside of the bucket with a little water, or dunk the bucket in the water trough. This usually does the trick and the treat will slide out of the bucket.

7. You can dump this treat right in your ring or you can place it in a rubber ground feeder. As you can see, this horse popsicle treat was incredibly well-received on our farm!

Individual Horse Popsicles

Need a smaller portion size? Try making mini versions in cups – for example Solo cups. If you board your horse or want to make one for your lesson mount, you can stick the frozen cup in a cooler with an ice pack to transport it to the barn!

Let us know how yours turn out!

We can’t wait to make them again and it will be fun to experiment with different fruits and vegetables.

Here are some other great horse treats if you are pressed for time and can’t make your own.

Have you ever made horse popsicles? What did you add to the treats? Do your horses enjoy eating them? Drop us a comment and let us know! 

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