Has anyone managed to make haylage this year?

[meesha]

just waiting for a reply to see if haylage suplier thinks he is going to have any haylage this winter. I am pretty sure NO-ONE has done any hay at all, silage has been done near us but all in 24 hours so pretty sure no haylage has been done!

just trying to plan ahead as without my normal haylage supplier who is fantastic (£25 per large bale delivered) I will be needing to source loads more haylage or hay !!!!!

Pleaseeeee someone say haylage has been done and that its not too late to do it in August if weather changes !

Doing hot sunny weather dance as we speak !

 

[monkeybum13]

YO managed to make some haylage luckily, as for hay, no chance so far this year.

 

[meesha]

thats encouraging - was starting to think that no haylage had been made at all this year. Have 2 acres of hay to make myself at some point !!!

 

[L&M]

Don't want to worry you but had the very same conversation with my haylage supplier this morning. He hasn't been able to cut yet, and thinks he may only get one cut rather than his normal two, which needs to keep for himself. He is going to try and honour my order, but if not knows of someone who is going to make small bales (when/if possible), that he will reserve for me.

Last yr we were all worrying that there wasn't going to be enough because of the drought, this year is because of the opposite!

Blooming weather - it does make me question whether keeping horses in this country is really worth it......

 

[redriverrock]

Ive spoken to my haylage supplier and he hasnt managed to get any haylage yet but has managed to get silage for his cows over the winter. I am seriously worried as he normally has at least 2 if not 3 cuts and even then it can be abit tight if we have a tough winter. I am thinking of paying in advance so I can be first in the queue but suspect others will do the same...abit of buttering up needed i think!
Has there ever been a time when there has been a serious enough shortfall of haylage to affect the well being of horses? Just wondering what would happen, what are the alternatives?

 

[Jesstickle]

We've had this years hay never mind haylage. sometimes it pays to live in East Angular!

 

[pip6]

not managed to make any yet. please send some dry days to the south west

 

[meesha]

oooohhh noooo - I was so hopeful after monkeybums answer !!! when I get hold of my haylage supplier I am going to ask if he can deliver 9 large bales straight away (I usually have between 9 and 12)- it will clog up my yard and be a pain but if he has any available I want them as in past years he has run out by end of Jan when there has been a shortage.

 

[monkeybum13]

Just to be optimistic we're South West too

Although panicking about hay!!!!

 

[scazza]

no haylage or hay made yet here in stoke on trent and we would normally be thinking about 2nd cut now!!!!

 

[meesha]

cant remember us having more than a day or two at a time here late may onwards ! if we had a couple of weeks I would have had hay done but either floods or showers, we did have a week of fab weather end of march or april (bad memory) as I had just planted 350 hedge plants and had to buy hundreds of meters of hosepipe to water them - I actually did a rain dance (literally on field) so apologies as it is obviously all my fault !!!! hehe

 

[monkeybum13]

Why??? We had a couple of really good weeks of dry, hot weather in late May so why was the first cut of hay / haylage not done then ????

I don't know what it was like in other parts of the country but where we were there wasn't much grass, the growth had been poor up until then.