Flaked cooked barley anyone feed it ?

[lurcherlu]

My girl has fast fibre (0.75 kg a day dry weight ) , hi fi lite1 Stubbs scoop (changes to Alfa a oil in winter ) coarse mix half a Stubbs scoop (cheap cool mix ) and then equivite t recommended dose , 100 g of micronised linseed and some salt . She's 4 years old in light to medium work (had 5 days off whilst I spend time with kids for last days of hols ) but will hack out for 2-3 hours with canter work 3 times a week , a schooling session and one sj session a week . She's 15.2hh Appaloosa welsh cross and always winters badly , I rug her up and is fed ab lib hay or haylage at night and the bucket feeds increase over the winter she gets double of the above feeds . ATM she's fit and we've been out competing low level sj 2'3 max ATM , but she lacks a bit of zoom . It's lovely that she's calm and happy to trot around (and go clear from trot at these heights ) but although she is balanced on both reins in canter she doesn't feel the need . Now the barley has been given to my boyfriend from his mate who's oh has horses but doesn't need barley as sold the horse she fed it to , I have a brand new bag of cooked flaked barley , was thinking of letting the coarse mix runout and slowly I trod icing the barely to her feed manly when we have a comp or harder work (hunting etc ) would it halo kee weight on if she was fed it n the winter and does it always send horses crazy (I know any horse will be crazy on any food of not getting enough work ) but if she was on a token amount and this was upped gradually during winter or in the lead up to faster harder work would it help give her a bit more oomph ?

 

[lurcherlu]

Anyone ??

 

[be positive]

It should not send her crazy, partly as it is cooked so some of the energy will be removed, if she is a poor doer you need to try and find what suits her before she loses weight, it is far easier to keep condition on before it drops than get it back on afterwards, especially over winter when giving longer out on good grass is not an option.
I would look at your feeds and possibly completely change, she is still growing and if you plan on hunting her this winter she may struggle to maintain her condition. Fast fibre is good for good doers but it is low in calories so not really going to help her in the winter, maybe speedibeet would be a better option, still fairly low energy but higher than FF, giving a small quantity of cheap mix is probably having little impact on her weight or energy levels but still costing you plenty, it would probably be best removed totally and if she does well on alfalfa giving that instead, it should give her a little extra energy and will probably do more than the mix will.

Not really answering your question, I would see how she goes using up the bag you have, introduce it as you cut out the mix, replace with the equal amount, if she does well on it then keep her on it, don't expect the bag to last for too long, once opened it will deteriorate and can go musty if it gets at all damp, a 20kilo bag fed at 1/2 kilo a day is going to last 40 days I would not want to be using it for much longer as by then it will be going past its best, feeding any less will probably have no effect and like any feed you shouldn't just give it once in a while, they need to be able to adjust to a new feed in order to utilise it fully.