feeding haylage? first timer advice please

cob&onion

cob&onion

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Going off my last thread regarding storing hay I have decided that haylage maybe the better option.

Never fed it before so looking for some advice.
I have 3 very good doers. 15.1hh cob who is in medium work, irish clipped. 3yr welsh d who is being backed and a fat welsh a who is in very light work (wknds only). They all live out 24 7 the cob is rugged others naked.
At the moment the cob is on good grass during day then with oyhrr 2 at night. Other 2 have 2 lots of hay morn and eve. They are not overly hungry yet as some is left and they graze what little grass there is. Cob has 2 handfulsof dengie alfalfa and scoop nuts twice a day welsh d has 1 handful dengie scoop of nuts pony has half scoop nuts once per day.
How much haylage should I give if replacing hay? Can it be fed ad lib to good doers? Have no way of weighing it. Was thinking if someone can give me an idea on bag size of the small wrapped bales that would be good.
Thanks
 
No idea of weight of Haylage but cheapest way is to get a big bale once weather is cold and grass gone, I then feed it AdLib to my 2 good doers but only December ish to end Feb, important to take them off it early enough before weather warms and grass comes through. Mine don't put weight on. I don't feed anything else except lite balancer, no chaff, no nuts .... Mine don't need the calories.

If you only use Haylage in cold weather you can get it delivered onto a pallet, totally take off wrap, tie rope round it so it doesn't fall apart, you could then let horses at it or do as I used to, rope round, tarp over and another rope, undo to fill hay bars twice a day. Our Haylage is nice and dry for Haylage so lasts longer I am not keen on the wetter stuff, I get charged 25 per bale delivered and it lasts ten days in depths of winter. Smaller bales like fossway don't last me and therefore cost a fortune.
 
meesha said:
No idea of weight of Haylage but cheapest way is to get a big bale once weather is cold and grass gone, I then feed it AdLib to my 2 good doers but only December ish to end Feb, important to take them off it early enough before weather warms and grass comes through. Mine don't put weight on. I don't feed anything else except lite balancer, no chaff, no nuts .... Mine don't need the calories.

If you only use Haylage in cold weather you can get it delivered onto a pallet, totally take off wrap, tie rope round it so it doesn't fall apart, you could then let horses at it or do as I used to, rope round, tarp over and another rope, undo to fill hay bars twice a day. Our Haylage is nice and dry for Haylage so lasts longer I am not keen on the wetter stuff, I get charged 25 per bale delivered and it lasts ten days in depths of winter. Smaller bales like fossway don't last me and therefore cost a fortune.
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I would advise against opening the whole thing up, even in cold weather - it won't last well at all. Haylage, unlike hay, is preserved by excluding air, hence the wrap. Once air gets in the deterioration process begins - if you have square bales, the front slice keeps air off the ones behind it. That is probably the reason you don't get many round bales, unlike hay.
When I first began using it I did unwrap and move a bale indoors, slice by slice, and it went off very quickly. I use mine slice by slice, out in the weather, with the wrap or an extra small tarp to keep the rain off, and it lasts around a month. Unwrapped it will be lucky to last 10 days.
 
I wouldn't feed adlib hay or haylage at the moment if they are very good doers. I would also drop the nuts totally for the fat Welsh A, and you may find that if you swap to haylage you can drop the nuts for the other two as well. I would give just a small amount of haylage morning and evening and monitor their weight and appetite levels before increasing it. Try and get a high fibre, low energy haylage if you can.
 
Good haylage can be quite fattening! If your horses are good doers you probably don't want to replace hay completely. As trickle feeders they can eat hay continuously and it wont really affect their weight but haylage makes my horses fat so they get fed it with hay to keep their condition in winter but not as a replacement.

As for net size, we usually feed about half a net of haylage of what we would feed hay, they'll finish it quickly which is another reason we feed both so they still have something to work at.
 
Is there a reason for wanting to move from hay? I would personally not be feeding that lot haylege at all...stick with hay and as little as you can get away with. You can by the way buy a weigh scales that is about hand sized and has a hook on the end for weighing hay nets...might be worth getting one from your local tack shop?
 
I would feed cautiously to very good doers and keep a weekly record of their weight as they can balloon on it. Our yard made atrocious hay this year so I’ve had to switch to haylage which I’m soaking for 12 hours to strip out what I can – sacrilege really but needs must. I use cheapo digital luggage scales to weigh nets pre soaking.
 
A small wrapped bale weighs between 22 - 30 kg depending on the supplier (Marksway Horeshage are 24 kg for eg), and will cost in the region of £5 - £7 per bale. The larger the bale, the more economical it is - mine are 300kg and last approx 3 weeks as comes very dry, and cost £30 delivered.

Fish scales are brill for wieghing nets and can be easily found on ebay. Mine currently get 8kg overnight but are stabled. This will be increased as the winter progresses and the grass dies down.

I have never had a problem with haylage making mine fat, but then they are in full work and hunt, so no doubt utilise the extra calories. Having said that one of my liveries feeds haylage to a happy hacker that has copd and as long as he has a weighed amount, maintains a healthy weight. I think a lot depends on the quality of the haylage and the time of year it was made.

In your circumstances I would not have problem with feeding haylage, but just not ad lib.
 
Would be very wary of feeding ad lib haylage to good doers,I've seen a cob after a few weeks of ad lib and it wasn't a pretty sight! You'll find they stuff haylage far more than hay . We use second and third cut big bale haylage so that the nutritional value is lower, that way we can give them more without them getting fat- keeps the neds happy and we don't feel mean! Beware of wet haylage as it tends to give them the squits.
 
I use large bales for my youngster and two Shetlands. In past years I have specifically asked the farmer to give me the driest bales he had, the odd one has been a little rich so have mixed with hay but most of it has been very dry and more like hay so I feel safe feeding it ad lib even to my ponies. This year I've cut my own haylage and it's perfect fir my boys, like hay but easier to store, no dust or spores to have to deal with :)

The small good quality haylage such as horsehage is no good as it does make my boys nil at and get fat very quickly.
 
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