barley for condition?

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robynandTilly

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Hi, looking at adding a feed for condition to my horses current feed. She is on fibre beet, sugar beet, apple chaff, oats and mirconised linseed (2 cups per day one on a morning one on a night). I have noticed since upping her exercise and winter.taking its toll she has lost abit of condition and after a month of increasing her feeds its not improving. I read barley is a good cheap conditioning feed does anyone have any experience of feeding it ? I would prefer not to go down the Bailey's topline route as my student wage does not quite stretch that far but any other reasonably priced ( up to around £14) conditioning feeds available would be appreciated. No restrictions on energy as she is fairly laid back and I prefer her with abit of spark for competing.

Thanks in advance
 
robynandTilly said:
Hi, looking at adding a feed for condition to my horses current feed. She is on fibre beet, sugar beet, apple chaff, oats and mirconised linseed (2 cups per day one on a morning one on a night). I have noticed since upping her exercise and winter.taking its toll she has lost abit of condition and after a month of increasing her feeds its not improving. I read barley is a good cheap conditioning feed does anyone have any experience of feeding it ? I would prefer not to go down the Bailey's topline route as my student wage does not quite stretch that far but any other reasonably priced ( up to around £14) conditioning feeds available would be appreciated. No restrictions on energy as she is fairly laid back and I prefer her with abit of spark for competing.

Thanks in advance
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How about adding some soaked grass nuts? :) with lack of grass in the winter, these usually get the weight right back on
 
i feed barley and always have done, only because when i was young my dad always fed it.
rolled barley ive found puts condition on really well but after buying a horse on the slim side i decided to use micronised flaked barley and ive found that as good if not better.
with in a month my horse looks different:cool:
it hasnt heated him up or any other horse ive fed barley too either.
i feed one scoop of barley and one of sugar beet twice a day and have done since a child (well dad did then)
 
kiteman0 said:
i feed barley and always have done, only because when i was young my dad always fed it.
rolled barley ive found puts condition on really well but after buying a horse on the slim side i decided to use micronised flaked barley and ive found that as good if not better.
with in a month my horse looks different:cool:
it hasnt heated him up or any other horse ive fed barley too either.
i feed one scoop of barley and one of sugar beet twice a day and have done since a child (well dad did then)
Click to expand...

Totally agree!!
 
Why not just up the Oats? Better than boiling barley and if you buy already processed barley as soon as it is exposed to air it start losing nutritional value.

My guy was on up to 2kgs of Oats over winter and looked lovely.
 
In my understanding feeding barley for condition is similar to feeding a human sugary cake to help them put on weight.Yes it works but the long term implications on health are less desirable.
In horses the key to maintaining condition is fibre. Your basic hard feed seems good for this but you do not mention whether the horse is getting ad lib forage(hay,haylage or straw) If forage is not constantly available I would look at making sure it is before looking at conditioning feeds.
If forage is ad lib then you could consider adding more oil to the diet,perhaps in a fibre based form like this http://www.stanceequine.com/product-coolstance-copra
 
ive also used coolstance copra:)
i also had good results with this feed when feeding a very lean 17.2 sport horse that wasnt in alot of work.
he would loose weight if he fretted for 5 mins. :rolleyes:
 
My friend has her tb on barley rings - you don't need to soak or boil them but they have the same benefit, he does really well on them and has put a lot of weight on - they're nice and cheap too
 
She gets two big trawler nets every morning and refilled for overnight aswell as two tractor tyres filled with hayage while she's out for 3 /4 hours my problem is she picks at it she never devours it. It's good haylage the other 150 horses on the yard have no problem with it :( would consider feeding from the floor but she won't touch anything she drops even feed. Any suggestions are noted will try work out what's best to do any suggestions on the haylage side would be appreciated too I hadnt really thought of the significance or any solution to be truthful however other people have tried other things so may work for me too
 
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