Does anyone NOT feed hay/haylage

I look after a couple of oldies who don't get any hay or hayledge, it's all about the local feed shops own brand senior chop type forage. They do very very well on this ad lib.
 
Hay replacements aren't really hay replacemEnts as they can be gobbled down too quickly and .should never be a total replacement for good .quality long stemmed forage.
 
I wouldn't do it myself but I was speaking to a lady today who just feeds fast fibre and chop, 5 times a day and her horses do well on it apparently. Not oldies either?

Just curious!
 
I wonder if anyone manages to sustain their horses on grass alone? I think I almost could, but I tend to give hay anyway during colder periods to keep them warm!
 
I am unable to feed hay atm as YO thinks horses fight over it when living out:( there is no grass just mud but my ISH mare is doing well. I am feeding her fast fibre and nuts and she looks well. She has dropped off a bit this week as it has been so cold. I have only been doing this though for a month prior to this she had good grass and haylage. I moved her so I would have a school and jumps but I think I defo jumped the gun and should have waited another month.:D:D:D
 
Slightly Foxed said:
Hay replacements aren't really hay replacemEnts as they can be gobbled down too quickly and .should never be a total replacement for good .quality long stemmed forage.
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There are horses with dental problems (oldies especially) that can't cope with that, though - I've seen several do well on soaked fibre feeds when they couldn't cope with hay or even chop.
 
Theocat said:
There are horses with dental problems (oldies especially) that can't cope with that, though - I've seen several do well on soaked fibre feeds when they couldn't cope with hay or even chop.
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Yes, sorry, I agree, I've done that with oldies myself, and chopped up my own hay for them. Grass is best, but I don't have any at the moment, along with many others in the country I guess!
 
hihosilver said:
I am unable to feed hay atm as YO thinks horses fight over it when living out:( there is no grass just mud but my ISH mare is doing well. I am feeding her fast fibre and nuts and she looks well. She has dropped off a bit this week as it has been so cold. I have only been doing this though for a month prior to this she had good grass and haylage. I moved her so I would have a school and jumps but I think I defo jumped the gun and should have waited another month.:D:D:D
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Perhaps you need to consider bringing her in for hay. Personally, I couldn't not feed any kind of forage. Forage should make up 80 percent of the diet no matter what.
 
Mine are getting large bales of barley straw out in the fields and a bucket feed of sugarbeet and grass nuts for those that are not fatties.
 
I feed haylage to all my horses but Ive some oldies who can only get hay and the haylage passes quickly though them. We use a powder called comfort gut that slows there digestion down or if a horse has smelly droppings , is well wormed and we cant find out what the problem is we use this and it seems to fix it!
 
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