Oats or Barley? Opinions please!

[sugarlump121]

This year Im planning to feed my boy
Alfa A oil, sugar beet and either barley or oats with a vit/min supplement, as every year I struggle with his weight and have tried top spec, conditioning cubes and some others and they have never seemed to work that well. The feed Im planning to use was fed to 40+ horses at a riding school I used to work at and they all looked fab so Im going back to basics.

My question is, oats or barley?
He's had both in the past (rolled, crushed, micronised etc) and is fine on both. He's in medium work and in the winter will be in overnight and on ad lib hayledge and isn't a good doer.

I can only feed 2 feeds a day but will give him some fibre nuts in his ball overnight.

So what you think? I'm needing condition and energy!

Thanks!

 

[TGM]

I've fed both to my old mare to keep condition on - both work well but which one I use depends on what is the best value at the time. For a long time micronised barley worked out cheapest for me, but now feed store is stocking rolled oats at a very reasonable price so am opting for those at the moment. Only disadvantage to the oats is they often pass through undigested if unsoaked, so I pop them in with the soaking sugar beet to solve the problem!

 

[Chico Mio]

Whole oats are what I use. I soak them for 24 hours and drain for at least 1 hour (usually 12 as it works better for me). I soak enough to last two horses a couple of days and start the next lot off to be ready when I run out.

I feed them with sugar beet, corn or soya oil, cider vinegar and a joint supplement for one of them.

A friend who runs a stud feeds the same but also soaked whole barley in addition to the oats

 

[ofcourseyoucan]

if you look around you might find an old burco boiler? then you can cook the oats or barley for hour or so then shut off. then lovely porridge which makes them fat and gives energy but not the fizz?

 

[ladybones]

We use barley either micronised or in winter we cook whole barley in the bottem of the aga.. they love it and it really keeps the weight on, plus you can put linseed in aswell.

 

[sugarlump121]

Thanks everyone for the input, I dont want to sound like I cant be bothered but using a boiler or a system which is more complicated than say a sugarbeet system as I dont have much time in winter with 2 living in overnight, also 1 poss 2 days a week I need someone else to bring the boys in and feed which would include soaking feed...

 

[joy]

Boiled barley with boiled linseed, get a big pan, boil up one lot one day and another the next, put the boiled linseed in the fridge to make it last longer. I used to feed stabled horses on this regime for years.