14 Jun Easy Winter Mash for Horses

When the weather starts to cool down, the owners of “hard keepers” often worry about their horses losing condition. During Winter, horses need to eat more calories to maintain their body temperatures and in turn, their weight. As temperatures drop, you may need to adjust your horse’s diet to ensure they stay healthy and well conditioned over the colder months.

Horses benefit from additional forage over Winter, so look at increasing the amount of hay you feed your horse. If your horse is not eating all their hay rations, or you have a senior horse with poor teeth, you will also need to look at supplementing with higher energy feeds that you can dampen down or turn into a mash.

Making your horse a Winter Mash will make you both feel good on a blistery day. The T&R Easy Winter Mash recipe was prepared for us by equine nutritionist Jill Davies, and is an excellent way of offering your horse a healthy, digestible treat.

To make this Easy Winter Mash you’ll need a bag of T&R Flaked Barley as well as some bran, millmix or pollard. We’ve chosen T&R Flaked Barley specifically because it is a highly digestible grain product. The gelatinisation process has already started which makes it easier for horses to digest. This helps to minimise starch issues in the hind gut.

While all horses can be offered the Easy Winter Mash as a special treat on a cold day, you’ll find this recipe especially suited to older horses and ponies with poor dentition. The sloppy consistency is easy for them to eat and will help to provide sufficient water intake during cold weather.

Ingredients

• 500g T&R Flaked Barley
• 500g Mill Mix, Pollard or Bran

Instructions

• Add T&R Flaked Barley to your horse’s feed bucket
• Add enough boiling water to cover the T&R Flaked Barley
• Pop a tea towel, saddle pad or hessian bag over the bucket and let steep for 10-15 minutes
• Once your timer has gone off, stir in your mill mix/pollard/bran

Don’t forget to let us know how much your horse enjoyed the T&R Easy Winter Mash!