Feeding haylage to a good doer with COPD

[Sanolly]

Hi guys I am new, will introduce myself properly in a mo!

I have a 5 year old welsh section c mare who was diagnosed with vey mild COPD last friday. I have put her on megasorb and will be giving her haylage on the floor along with NAF Easy Breathe supplement, but she is a very good doer and eats very quickly so I am wondering what I can do to stop her getting bored?
I did think of a treat ball but as she does so well she will not need hard feed if being fed haylage. She normally gets 2 thick sections of a small hay bale which I put in a small holed net to make it last longer but I can't feed her haylage in a net?

Any advice gratefully received, off to find the new members section!

 

[Izzwizz]

Why cant you feed her haylage in a small holed net if you used one with hay? You can feed the lower calorie haylage for good doers - Horsehage or the Equilage Timothy Rygrass if your worried about weight gain. For boredom you could give her a swede to chew on, my mare had one when she was on box rest.

 

[Sanolly]

I was advised by the vet to feed her from the floor, so the mucus runs out her nose rather than into her lungs? Can you feed a COPD horse in a haynet? I know virtually nothing about it so having been doing a lot of research! I will get a string of swedes up as well to make her work!
ETA it's not the haylage I'm worried about per say, just how to make it last overnight!

 

[mainpower]

Can't you feed her well soaked hay? I have a home made hay bar for my horse, and I tie his haynet at ground level in it, if I put it in loose he drags it all through his bed. They're very easy to make, two battens fixed to the wall, and a sheet of ply cut to size that slides in and out so youcan clean behind it.

 

[Sanolly]

could you post a pic? I will speak to my y/o about it but I am a very new livery (moving in on Saturday) so worried about making waves! It is a very small holed net, do you think it would be safe to tie at ground level without putting something in front of it?

 

[mainpower]

If I get my camera in action I'll do a pic tomorrow. The haynet goes behind the haybar (which is a sheet of ply) so they can't get their feet anywhere near the net, unless they climb in!

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

I wouldn't advise tying a haynet at floor level. Too many opportunities for disaster. My horse has a pollen allergy and my vets also advised feeding at ground level so that his head was downwards. I've bought a Haybar for his haylage but tbh, you have to fluff the haylage up really well or whenever the horse grabs a mouthful, a whole chunk gets grabbed (haynet holes keep mouthfuls down to a decent size) and the horse can then waste vast amounts by the surplus falling to the floor and getting trodden on. So my boys haylage pokes out of the top of the Haybar and his head isn't exactly downward pointing for most of the time! But he's doing fine with it. What you could do is put haylage in TWO small holed haynets, one inside the other - the horse has to work very hard to get any haylage out at all (you need to monitor to make sure the horse is getting enough to eat - you might be better putting a large holed net inside a small holed one, or the other way round). As your ned only has mild COPD, this might work for her. Another solution is to tie 2 lots of one-inside-the-other haynets at different places in the stable so the horse has to move around more. If you have a deep litter bed though, that would make you cry! But otherwise it would certainly keep your horse moving a little more. Other than that, you could put haylage in a huge tub eg old blue oildrum thing and get an iron grid to fit the drum diameter. Haylage in, heavy iron grid on top. Grid acts as the holes in a haynet, falling with the level of hay as it goes down, but making the horse work a little harder for his hay. You can buy grids like that somewhere but I can't remember where! Bet someone on here knows!