Barley

Description

Barley is a cereal grain derived from the grass Hordeum vulgare. Barley provides high levels of easy digestible energy and other nutrients but need to be preprocessed before feeding. As barley grain is very hard, it needs to be crushed, rolled, or popped before feeding to reach the highest digestability in the horse's small intestine.

Properties

The crude proteins, starch and lysine content in barley is intermediate to oats and corn. Barley is lower in fiber than oats and is classified as a «heavy» feed. Brewers’ dried grains tend to be higher in protein, fiber, and lower in starch than whole grain. Due to its convenient energy content, Barley can be considered as long-lasting source of suitable energy especially for endurance horses, race horses as well as eventing or high lass dressage and show jumping horses.

Possible uses

Barley can be considered as a good grain-based source of energy putting condition on horses, trigger «hot» behaviour and provide long-lasting sources of energy for high performance horses. Although, barley is providing a very solid basis for grain component in the daily diet off the horse, it has to be mixed with complementary feed to balance especially vitamin and trace elements and prevent a deficiency of those.