Product Review: The Forage Porridge

One of my favorite things about social media is finding and connecting with fellow equestrians and equestrian owned small businesses. I recently stumbled upon The Forage Porridge (@theforageporridge on instagram) and immediately loved their single-serve forage based mash kits. These individually packaged kits come in a variety of flavors and are full of good for your horse ingredients. All you have to do is mix with warm water, let sit about 5-10 mins and then serve. They are just so fun, colorful, vibrant and easy to use; the perfect treat after a cold turnout or a long horse show.

They are all designed with your horse’s gut health in mind, enticing your horse to ingest more liquid via the wet mash as well as with salt to encourage more drinking. Both of which are so important during these cold winter months. All of the ingredients such as Rose Hips, Peppermint Leaves, Himalayan Salt, Flax, Chia, Pumpkin Seeds and Dried Fruits are chosen with specific benefits in mind that will not only taste good but enhance your horse’s nutrition. Most of the forages contain a base of Teff Pellets with some mixes using Timothy or Alfalfa Pellets.

My horses got to try a new (not yet released) flavor called Orchard Ride. It contains timothy pellets, dried apple, dried cranberries, cold-milled flax, sunflower seeds, rose petals and Himalayan pink salt. It smelled amazing and my horses went crazy for it. Tiger got to try it first and immediately slurped it up. He even closed his eyes while eating and I can imagine that is exactly what I look like when I am eating an amazing dessert. Shooter, Scout and Dreamer (who can be picky) also cleaned up every piece and licked their bowls.

You can purchase your own Forage Porridge on their website (theforageporridge.com). They cost $10.99 per flavor and you can even try a Mini Mash Flight for $16.75. I am going to stock up on a few for the rest of the cold months and to even give as a special after horse show treat. They would also be good to try if you have a picky eater who needs meds, they would be great to hide meds in. We (myself and my horses) enthusiastically recommend The Forage Porridge.

I was lucky to have Connie (the entrepreneur behind The Forage Porridge) answer a few questions:

What led you to start The Forage Porridge?

Daisy, the horse love of my life. She was an incredibly picky horse and I would try out different flavors and herbs and I enjoyed making her mashes to eat. She inspired me to dive deep into equine nutrition and learn as much as I can. In December 2022, I wanted to make some cute gifts for my barn friends and landed on making mashes with hay pellets as the base, to align with their horses’ diets. I thought they turned out cute and posted some pictures on my personal instagram asking if anyone wanted to buy some- and to my surprise, 48 hours later and 50 orders in, I had to stop taking orders and figure out how to be a business woman!

How do you choose ingredients and flavor profiles? Which flavor is your best seller?

The flavors come to me in different ways. For example, I was listening to the Midnights album by T Swift and the song “Snow on the Beach” came on, and I thought to myself that it was a great name for a mash flavor. I built the mash around that name, coconut for the snow, flax for the sand, peppermint leaves for the winter flavor. The original four flavors were flavors Daisy tried out and loved (Peppermint & Carrot, Carrot Cake, The Herbalist, No Sugar Mint). I also think of ingredients horses love and come up with different combinations that way. I have to curb my imagination a bit though, as each flavor must be sent off for analysis which is an additional expense each time.

Best seller? Carrot Cake! Although I have not met a horse that turned their nose up at Snow on the Beach!

I noticed the mashes are Teff pellets based, is there a reason you use Teff over other pellets?

I discovered teff pellets through a barn friend whose horse had foundered. She used them as a simple and safe snack for her horse as teff is generally low in sugar and starch. When developing the Forage Porridges, I wanted to make sure I could include her horse in my holiday barn party gifts, so I turned to teff pellets as a base. To my surprise, Daisy ate them with much more enthusiasm than timothy pellets!

I do have alfalfa and timothy pellets in some of our new flavors, which I am excited to bring to our product line.

Any new flavors on the horizon you can tell us about?

Yes! Coming soon I have one called Papaya Sunrise which has alfalfa and beet pulp pellets, anise, flax, papaya, rose petals and calendula petals. It is a GORGEOUS mash and one of the last ones Daisy approved before she passed. I am also trialing some mashes with timothy, and have three flavors in the works. I don’t have an estimated time frame for the release of these yet but I hope by midsummer they will be available!