Posted by Dr Thunes on 2/18/2011, 2:55 pm, in reply to "yes" 128.120.218.130
When I looked into the fodder solutions at a show last year they were suggesting to feed the whole thing root matt and leaves. It was surprisingly dense. I ate some and it had significant chew time and tasted pretty good.
I would look at this feed on a dry matter basis as there is such a high moisture content so I would look at it like grass. According to Fodder international the dry matter is 17% you found a value of 22.3% so if we go with your higher number then the 8kg slab will only provide 1.784kg of dry matter. A 500kg horse (1100lb) needs to consume 1.5-2% of its body weight per day as dry matter. So if you are going to feed 1 slab of sprouted barley you will need to feed at least an additional 5.7kg (12.5lbs) about 2.5 flakes of hay per day to meet dry matter intake requirements.
Also keep in mind that the energy values given for this are ME (metabolizable energy) values and the horse's requirements are based on Digestible energy. The ME in kJ/day is 12.1 however this is for ruminants and they have a different ability to extract nutrients out of feed (generally more efficient).
However if we take the 12.1MJ/kg value given on hte fodder solutions website that is equal to 2.89 Mcal/ME/kg. So the 1.784kg of dry matter you get from the 8kk matt will be providing 5.1 Mcal/ME. in reality the horse is getting less energy than this as these are ruminant figures.
1lb of LMG Gold provides 1.8Mcal of DE. So your 10-12lbs is providing 18-21.6 Mcal a day. So you can see that to replace it you would need to feed about 2.5-3 of these barley matts a day if you wanted to provide the came calories.
BTW ideally you should not feed more than 5lbs of grain in any one meal as otherwise it is at risk of reaching the hindgut undigested and that could disrupt fermentation contributing to weight loss.
