advice with horse coughing when fed hay

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Luce1504

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I currently feed my 2 mares haylage as my TBx gets a really bad cough after even just one day on hay- i always thoroughly soak it but it appears to make no difference. Is it normal for soaking to not make a difference??? i always use hay towards spring when they are beginning their 24/7 turnout as I can't get through big bale haylage quick enough and her cough is horrendous, whereas she will go all winter being stabled at night without coughing once if on haylage.

Its just that they are very fat and as suggested by people in the weightwatcher post yesterday i would like to feed hay to help with this.
 
i put it in a haynet and then into a old plastic barrel to be left to soak. Which i believe should be enough to stop her coughing but apparently not, my thoughts are that maybe it dries out before she's eaten it all?

I can't share bales of haylage as I keep my horses at my parents house and theres only our two there.
 
yep the cough is completely non-existent when she is on haylage. We had the other mare first and she used to be hay fed and kept on straw and when we got the new mare (8 years ago) she developed a horrendous cough and we had the vet to her then, and they recommended as much turnout as possible and a change to shavings and haylage, all of which we did and this completely stopped the cough. She is currently not really in work at all, she has the occassional hack at a weekend, but she will be back in work once i can ride in the fields.

I am more than happy to keep her on haylage as she has been fit and healthy on it for over 8 years but its just that due to her drastically reduced workload she is now fatter than she has ever been and feeding hay would reduce her calories.
 
yeah, I think I am going to have to try experimenting, will try soaking it for longer and try getting it from elsewhere although tbh the quality of the stuff we have had previously isn't bad at all, but really need to get the weight starting to come off them both before the spring grass comes through. I have invested in grazing muzzles this year and as soon as the ground is dry enough their work load will be increased.

How much hay or haylage would u give to to a 15hh HW cob and a 15.1 TBx who desperately need to lose weight. They are currently turned out for up to 8 hours a day on very poor grazing and get a 10kg net of haylage at night.
 
They need a minimum of about 1.5% of bodyweight in food just to maintain, so I would feed 2% ideally. Get yourself a weigh tape and some scales but you need to allow more for haylage as it has more moisture in it.

I'd def try soaking the hay overnight as it will make sure any spores in it have swollen and won't irritate the throat. Try putting the haylage in really small holed haynets (if you don't already) to make it last longer.
 
you can soak the haylage as well
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I have heard (but could well be wrong....) that soaking hay for more than 30 minutes can make it worse than when it is dry, as swells the pores that cause the problems.
I only soak hay for a maximum of 20 minutes - but instead of hanging it a net where it will dry more quickly I soak it in a tub (tubtrug or something similar) and then after soaking turn the tub upside down to drain it, but then put the whole tub in the stable with the horse.
By doing this (unless you leave the tub upside down for ages) some moisture will stay in the bottom of the tub and will help to keep the hay moist for longer
 
I had a pony (sold 2 weeks ago) who also coughed like stink on hay whether soaked or not.

If they're chubby, then I would suggest cutting down on the amount of haylage you give them at night and maybe putting it in 2 small holed nets to make it even harder to get at.

I used to feed him small bale Devon Haylage which wasn't cheap, but was fabulous quality and lasted nearly a week without going off. I fed him (14.1 NF Pony, good doer approx 400kg weight) 4kg a night. He also had a small bowl of feed, 1/4 hi fi nuts, 1/2 chaff, stubbs round scoops. Like you about 8 hours out every day on grass (not that good and lots of mud) and in at night, and I struggled to keep his weight down on those rations. My other pony has hay, he's fine on it, another chubby boy and it's cheaper too.

It won't feel nice when you've been used to being so generous, but I would cut right down on the haylage you're feeding, drop it by a kilo a night, aiming for 5-6kg. I work on the basis of 1% bodyweight in hay or haylage a night, then their small feed and the grass they get during the day, and mine are still not losing weight and they could still do with being a bit slimmer...

I'm sure there was a post on here some time ago about a lady with shetlands who on vets advice had them part stabled on shavings with no hay at all at night, and they looked fantastic and at the correct weight. I remember she said how mean she felt doing that at first, but the results were worth it and the shetties had got used to things being that way too.

Sometimes I rather wish I had a poor doer, it would be a novelty to try and feed something up, rather than have to weigh and ration everything!
 
Mine coughs on hay no matter if it is soaked or not. He doesn't on haylage. Sometimes he has to have hay, so he has a couple of coughs at the start of a schooling session then is fine. TBH there is nothing I can do about it so I don't let it worry me too much. I just feed him haylage whenever I can and soak his hay and live with it.
 
thanks everyone for your advice! I think I am going to give the hay one last try- using the best I can find, thoroughly soaked and fed from the ground and if that doesn't work I am just going to have to stick with the haylage and work on giving them smaller amounts, but I think I will try splitting it into as many small feeds as possible.

PennyJ: I agree sometimes I also wish my 2 weren't such good doers, although in my case I know it is due to them not doing even a quarter of the amount of work they have done in previous years and this is why their weight is creeping up, but I am unable to increase their work until the fields have dried up so I can ride/lunge in them but that will coincide with spring grass!
 
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