Hay or Haylage??

[mm]

Hi chaps

Sorry i havent been about much lately, hope everyone is ok? Im getting short of hay now what wuld you recommend?

[Casper]

If your horses are currently on hay I'd be tempted to stick with that personally and see what you can buy locally.

[mm]

Hi

Sorry the first thread didnt make much sense as my little boy was just chatting constantly in my ear!

What i was meant to say was haylage is getting much easier to get hold of, was wondering whether you can feed it adlib like hay or whether you have to ration it as i dont want him to run out as he never does of hay as i can give him loads? dont really know what to do??

Thanks again.

[hazelhorse]

We feed all our horses on haylage and feed ad lib in small holed nets so that they can't scoff it too quickly. All the horses on the yard love haylage and any horses moving in who have been on hay previously soon vote with their teeth as we gradually transfer them over, by leaving the hay portion of their net. It is wise to have the haylage that you buy analysed to check that it is of a suitable quality for ordinary riding horses, as some is high in protein and can be a little like rocket fuel. Even on the haylage we use, which is made to have suitable levels for most horses we do find that levels of hard feed can be reduced slightly in most of the horses.

[Casper]

LOL Hazelhorse, that's exactly what Clover did when we moved to where there was only haylage available. We mixed her 3/4 hay to 1/4 haylage night one - next day all haylage gone, mountain of hay left and so on...

Sorry mm, got the complete wrong end of the stick with my earlier post.

Re feeding haylage you have to feed at least 1.5 times what you would feed of hay because of the water content.

[RiP Its A Matter Of Principle]

All horses prefer haylage but reality is its higher in sugar so not as good for them! Its hard to get proper horse haylage that doesnt cost 9£ for a small bag! Haylage should be almost as dry as hay!! Sheep and cattle haylage is smellier and richer, then sylage is real yucky stuff! But honestly we have fed haylage in the past to horses who have ROA and while its better than dusty hay if you can get hay id stick with hay Haylage is known to cause laminitis in horses more so than hay and put alot of weight onto them! Most of the haylage people come across now is for fattening up sheep and cattle for slaughter so ideally id avoid it at all costs!

Its like giving your child a chocolate bar and a fruit multi grain bar we all know which one the kids going to pic they one with the most sugar and fat!!

[horsey123]

we feed both

i feed haylage to the oldies and the rehabs who need to keep weight on or need a little more energy

and i feed hay to all the fizzys and those lami prone

they perfare haylage but the stuff i have is like rockett fule my welsh D broke ito the barn and eat to nets full of haylage he was off his rocker i could of swore some one had drugged him that night

[moongirl]

I recently started giving haylage to both my pony and my Icelandic horse because the Icey has COPD, and I had run out of good hay. A few days later the little pony was showing signs of laminitis ( he is prone to it very easily ) so I had to stop giving it to him straight away. He is better now. I know a lot of people successfully feed haylage to ponies, but just be careful and keep an eye on them if you do decide to feed it. They def do prefer haylage though - they were a bit put out to have to go back on hay

[mm]

Thanks everyone think i better stay on hay have been feeding a small amount of it and he has been a bit lively so maybe thats because of the haylage? I will look to see if i can get hold of some big bale hay its just easier xx

Thanks again everyone x