Do you feed your babies hay or haylage? Haylage has sent mine loopy!

Vickijay

Vickijay

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Hi.

My spotty baby has been on haylage for a few months and has never looked better.

But she is also now a bit bonkers, more jumpy, generally silly and spooky then when she was on hay.

Would you cope with the naughty monkey behaviour for the good growth and looking excellent or would you swap back to hay for nicer, easier baby? I dont want her to learn to be spooky and jumpy now when she wasnt before, but maybe she just didnt have the energy to be energetic and silly when just on hay...

I have been trying half and half and still the sillyness remains, but so does some of the hay!

Are your yearlings on haylage? Would you swap if you were me or not?

Thanks,

Vicki x
 
don't have a yearling but my 6 month old is fed soaked hay as easier for him to digest than haylage as my older horses are fed on top quality Ryegrass haylage and I think that would be too much for a baby!, if it were mine I'd swap to hay!
 
what type of haylage are they on? it might be worth feeding a meadow grass haylage rather than rye grass as this can sometimes affect behaviour and also their bottoms/droppings.
 
It is rye grass haylage and it is really good quality.

It made her a bit loose on the first day but not after.

I spoke to the farmer who made it who said he had 2nd cut stuff but probably not that much better than hay.

Its so tricky as she just looks amazing on it and is growing well again after a bit of a lull...

So Jane would you swap?!
 
mine have always been fed haylage since foals and all been fine.

can you try the 2nd cut before going back to hay?

what exactly is she doing that is bonkers? is it just high jinks or getting really silly?
 
It mainly is just playing alot more out in field, jumping on the other horses etc but it transfers to spooking and trying to jump on me, being frightened of things she never was before and just being funny in the stable etc.

Part of me thinks that this is what she should of been like all along but hasnt had the energy to.

Vicki
 
I would personally take her off it and you should see a difference in her in a couple days! Fionn (who you met at Tweseldown) cannot eat haylage....completely sends him doolally!!!!
 
I fed mine hay in the summer when they don't need so much cause of the grass and a mix of hay and hayledge in the winter. Last night my yearling had 1 fold of hay and about a armful of hayledge.

Ive done this with 3 yearlings and it seems to work for them and me .
 
My 6 month old has been on haylage from a very early age & seems fine. His mum got injured when he was 3 weeks old & they were confined to barracks for a month. Haylage was all I could source as we had no old hay & I didn't want to use the new cut just then. He has been fine on it..he loves it which was useful as he wouldn't eat hard feed at all until about a month ago!

Sue
 
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