bloody hubby and getting hay !

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horseandshoes77

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ok asked hubby to get me 2 bails of hay....came home with one bale of hay and one bail of haylage...said farmer said they were the same (hubby non horsey) so never ever used haylage......farmer wnt take back....so how long does haylage last unwrapped...how much do i give and can i feed this bail of haylage and then go back to hay?

honeslty 30 years owning horses and iv never used haylage so should i try selll the bail or can i use it and then go back to hay, have heard that it can be too much for good doers, i have 1 horse on rest, one thats cuckoo on anything heating and a youngster who is a very good doer.

Anyone want a bail of haylage cheap lol
 
oh didnt realise i could mix it with hay lol, someone said they wouldnt eat the hay when they had the haylage, but my vet said nt to feed haylage if possible hed rather hay cos its got more sugars in it ??
 
It has more nutrient in it and a higher sugar content, and some horses wont eat hay after eating haylage, but if yours are good doers like mine they'll eat anything remotely resembling grass. It will last a week, but it isnt "heating" and if you go by weight when filling a hay net, you'll use less because its got more water content in it. We use both on our yard depending on what we can get our hands on at the moment, but its normally haylage and we have a variety of old, young, fat, thin horses. Its just the quantity you'll need to measure.
 
We've mixed it when we were going from haylage to hay, and hay to haylage :). Gets the tummies used to the richer haylage. As OS says, higher in sugars. Horses do tend to prefer it to hay, so mix well :D We would layer it if it was going in haynets.

Don't use any part that has white mould on it. Throw it on the muck heap.
 
horseandshoes77 said:
ok asked hubby to get me 2 bails of hay....came home with one bale of hay and one bail of haylage...said farmer said they were the same (hubby non horsey) so never ever used haylage......farmer wnt take back....so how long does haylage last unwrapped...how much do i give and can i feed this bail of haylage and then go back to hay?

honeslty 30 years owning horses and iv never used haylage so should i try selll the bail or can i use it and then go back to hay, have heard that it can be too much for good doers, i have 1 horse on rest, one thats cuckoo on anything heating and a youngster who is a very good doer.

Anyone want a bail of haylage cheap lol
Click to expand...

How long it will last will depend on what size bale you have bought and how many you are feeding and what they eat normally (as in quantity).

I feed one 16.1hh ID retired and buy small bales. 1 bale lasts 3 1/2 days in the winter. But I am not feeding any haylage yet as he has plenty of grass. But I have just started to introduce a small amount of hard feed and I mean small.:)
 
Haylage is actually lower in sugar than hay.

Mix the two together at the same rate you would do hay, because haylage is damp then you need to feed more lb for lb than hay, so if you mix the same rate you should be fine.
 
You're right Scally (which you already knew lol). Just did a quick Google and got this from the Dengie website:


So far in 2007, the forage analysed by us for our customers showed that the average sugar content of hay was 10.5% whereas haylage is 9.8%. It would normally be expected to see haylage with a significantly lower sugar content than hay as the sugar should be fermented during the ensiling process. However, there seems to be a tendency to create drier haylages which may be compromising sugar fermentation as can be seen from our analysis; all the haylages with sugar values over 10% had a dry matter in excess of 65% whereas haylage would normally be expected to be 50-60% dry matter.

http://www.dengie.com/pages/posts/forage--facts-fiction-clarified.php


I always thought it was the other way round... Which leads to the question, why feed haylage to help weight gain?
 
Because haylage is much more palatable to horses than dry hay. It also is moist so you need to feed more haylage than you would hay, however you can cut hard feed down as haylage is very similar nutritionaly as good grass, the biggest mistake owners make is feeding the same hard feed to horses that they do when on hay and then complain their horses heat up on it, it is not the haylage, but the concentrates you are adding to their diet.

Haylage alone with unmollased sugar beet and alfa a oil, gives your horse every nutritional value they will ever need, if more weight required add more if less then decrease the amount. Also sugar beet increases the activity of the gut. Feed companies spend a lot of money convincing us otherwise. If lacking a bit of energy just add oats, simple feeding.

Hope that makes sense, sorry getting late.
 
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