Feeding Sweet Potatoes instead of Carrots as Treat for your Horse?

Can you feed sweet potato as a treat for your horse instead of carrots? Kentucky Equine Research answers this question:

Both sweet potatoes and carrots can be offered to your horses as treats. Carrots contain about 88% water, while sweet potatoes have about 77%, making sweet potatoes slightly more nutrient-dense. Both are relatively poor sources of protein because of the high water content (carrot, 0.9%; sweet potato, 1.6%; as fed).

The primary nutrient difference lies in the carbohydrate content of the two root vegetables. Although the fiber content (carrot, 2.8%; sweet potato, 3.0%; as fed) and the simple sugar content (carrot, 4.7%; sweet potato, 4.2%; as fed) are similar, sweet potatoes are much higher than carrots in starch (12.9% and 2.1%; as fed, respectively). Looking more closely at the type of starch in the sweet potatoes, 80% is rapidly digestible (enzymatic digestion), while only 11% is resistant starch (only fermentable by microbes). Sweet potatoes provide over twice the calories that carrots do (86 and 41 calories, respectively, per 100 g), mostly because of the difference in starch content. In this context, “as fed” refers to raw vegetables and “dry matter” to dehydrated vegetables.

Please click here to read the rest of the article as it appears on the Eurodressage website.