Trouble
Grand Prix Poster
Posts: 2,263
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Post by Trouble on Jan 3, 2010 21:29:36 GMT 1
In all my ulcer research last year, somewhere along the lines I stopped feeding haylage because I got it into my head that the higher acidity of haylage could aggrevate stomach ulcers.
Am I right on this?
I'm going through a feed overhaul (done it before but can't hurt to try again, and as suggested on my other thread!) and I'm trying to find out why exactly I stopped feeding haylage.
Am I right in thinking that haylage is bad for ulcer sufferes? Or have I made that up in my own head (or been told by smeone misinformed!)
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Post by LisaM on Jan 3, 2010 21:35:10 GMT 1
hmmm not sure tbh... or could it be that cos peeps tend to feed less haylage that it's not good for an ulcer sufferer to stand and not be munching? Whereas hay would be fed much more ad lib???
Any other thoughts?
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Post by mandal on Jan 3, 2010 21:38:05 GMT 1
I believe haylage should have a ph around 5 Trouble. Scroll down on this link and you can do another search to find a few to check. This is more acidic than hay but I've no idea whether it's best not to feed with ulcers tbh, though on the face of it, it would seem better not. www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/horses/facts/info_haylage.htm
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Trouble
Grand Prix Poster
Posts: 2,263
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Post by Trouble on Jan 3, 2010 21:41:40 GMT 1
Yeah that's what I thought but can't remember, for the life of me, where i got that info from, and everything I've read tonight says 'ulcer sufferes need free access to good forage like hay and haylage...'
contradicting what I thought. You can get a haylage balancer supplement that is suppoesed to counter the acidity of it, so figures that the acid would be a problem.
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Post by LisaM on Jan 3, 2010 21:52:23 GMT 1
Naf have produced the haylage balancer which has proved to be very good so it must be an acid issue.
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Post by mandal on Jan 3, 2010 21:53:20 GMT 1
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Post by Mellymoo on Jan 3, 2010 22:02:28 GMT 1
YH mag mentioned something about forage this month. Haylage ok, but silage very acidic.
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Post by Liz on Jan 3, 2010 22:36:44 GMT 1
I fed haylage to a horse I had who had a bad gut - not ulcers but worm damage. He had the most awful runs when he arrived and I wormed him - the bots that came out were hoorendous. I put him on Blue Chip which resolved his gut problem quite quickly. He had more or less ad lib haylage (I never fed less haylage than I would have done hay - possibly a bit more, actually) and this didn't seem to upset him at all. Silage is another matter and should not ever be fed to horses because of the danger of botulism.
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Post by Catrin on Jan 4, 2010 0:36:04 GMT 1
My haylage analysis says mine has a pH of 5.3 and puts it in the normal range. The pH is dependent on moisture, so hay would have a higher pH than haylage and silage the lowest, making silage more acidic. There is not much difference in pH between hay and haylage usually, so I would use moisture as a guide. If your haylage is quite wet, it will be more acidic than mine, which is almost dry.
Our ex-racer has thrived on ad lib haylage since we got him. He had ulcers and a course of slippery elm, which I got from Jackie J A Taylor fixed them. He occasionally gets the runs from grass, but a week of brewer's yeast will return his gut to normal.
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Post by peppertop on Jan 4, 2010 1:25:49 GMT 1
Out of interest Catrin, did you have him scoped before and after the slippery elm?
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Post by Catrin on Jan 4, 2010 10:23:17 GMT 1
Out of interest Catrin, did you have him scoped before and after the slippery elm? No, urine sucrose can be used as a test too, as it isn't usually present in blood and urine unless there are ulcers, but my yard owner does thermography and she found big red blotches in the gastric area. It was an assumption initially because most ex racers have them, he was losing weight and he had been stressed (listless and not eating) when his companion was injured and had a week in hospital, so the vet said, "I'd treat him for ulcers then!" We did and he got better.
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