Hay/haylage confusion?

ycbm said:
Dohh! Of course the leaf falls on the grounds, sorry!

Popsdosh, can you please point me to where a proper analysis shows that a kilo of haylage out of the bale has a higher feed value than a kilo of hay made from the same grass out of the bale?.

Sorry to bang on about this, but I think it's crucial if people are judging what to feed.

Because people can't feed dry matter and they are being told 'haylage has more energy than hay' as a feed guide.

And if that is true, then given the relative water content of hay and haylage, the haylage would have to have fifty per cent more energy in it per kilo of dry matter, and I just can't see it.
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To start with a horse actually has a requirement for nutrients that would be expressed in kg dm scientifically and not kg of product.
Of course a kilogram of haylege has less feed value than a kilogram of hay on a AS FED basis however to feed the horse its needs you would need to feed less DM as haylage than you would as hay on a DM basis , Approx 10% less in fact as that would be the standard difference in ME between the two.Haylage weight for weight would have 250 grams more water per kg and the last time i Checked water has not nutrient value.
You cannot in anyway compare them like for like on a fresh weight basis its totally meaningless.
 
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ycbm said:
Dohh! Of course the leaf falls on the grounds, sorry!

Popsdosh, can you please point me to where a proper analysis shows that a kilo of haylage out of the bale has a higher feed value than a kilo of hay made from the same grass out of the bale?.

Sorry to bang on about this, but I think it's crucial if people are judging what to feed.

Because people can't feed dry matter and they are being told 'haylage has more energy than hay' as a feed guide.

And if that is true, then given the relative water content of hay and haylage, the haylage would have to have fifty per cent more energy in it per kilo of dry matter, and I just can't see it.
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Surely you watch your horse's waistline? I don't need specific analysis to know that if my horse starts to gain weight or acting like a prat that she's getting too much.
 
Bonkers2 said:
As a former farmer, at least for a few years, I would say that the main reason there is a difference in hay and in haylage is that during the making of hay, it is first cut and lies flat, the sun dries the top and the cut ends dry a bit, then the work begins: turning the rows till nearly dry, windrowing, then finally baling, even in the best conditions, sun, warm, dry and light breeze the stuff will be turned and fluffed up approx four times as it has to be as dry as possible, but during the turning there is leaf shatter, so some leaf is left on the field and the hay therefore becomes proportionally more stalky.
With modern equipment, the haylage is cut and baled as soon as it is reasonably dry, then wrapped in Polythene, where it cures in about a month. The process is shorter and less mechanical turning, less leaf loss. Of course the leaf is the most sugary [richer] part of the plant.
This is my thinking of the processes, I don't know if other farmers would agree.
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In essence you are basically correct plus you also have to add in loses due to volatisation and respiration loses that are much higher the longer it lays on the ground. Which is why on average haylage would have 10% better nutrient profile than hay from the same grass at the same time in the same field.
 
all about silage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silage
now it does mention three acids: lactic, actetic and butyric

What the farmer wants is mainly lactic acid fermentation, this is the family of bacteria is used for yoghurt making and cheesemaking.
Some acetic acid will be acceptable, it is the family which turns wine in to vinegar

little or NO butyric : this butyric occurs when everything is wet, fermentation is slow and the silage is cr***p.

Really the silage / haylage and/or hay is how we define it and how it is made, the product of fermenting the grass varies: from a wet stinky stuff right thru to dry and looks like hay.
 
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Llanali said:
This is how I go too. I feed ad lib. But if I feed ad lib hayledge, they bounce from the walls with pregnant bellies, if I feed ad lib hay I need to feed full hard feeds to get the work I want from them.... 20/30lb of hayledge per 24 hours plus ad lib hay does mine fine.
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Goldenstar said:
I can only go by what I see in my own horses and that is that haylage contains more calories than hay .
My horses can hunt two days a week on a token hard feed and haylage add lib if I put them on hay within days I am having to up the hard food .
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Is it the same grass in the hay and the haylage?

9tails said:
Surely you watch your horse's waistline? I don't need specific analysis to know that if my horse starts to gain weight or acting like a prat that she's getting too much.
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I feed very low energy content haylage add lib.
 
popsdosh said:
You cannot in anyway compare them like for like on a fresh weight basis its totally meaningless.
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It's how we have to feed them popsdosh, fresh out of the bale. It's not meaningless. People are looking for guidelines of how much to feed.

I'm surprised I can't find anywhere a comparison between the energy contained in a kilo of hay from pure ryegrass and the energy from a kilo of haylage from grass grown side by side. We really do need to know!
 
http://www.caleya.es/equino/spa/wp-...rved-as-hay-haylage-or-silage-C.E.-Muller.pdf

The link above is to a paper which compares the preference of horses for hay/silage/haylage made from the same grass, and in the paper are tables containing the chemical composition of each, including digestible organic matter and metabolizable energy. These show the changes in the forage due to the type of conservation process.



ycbm said:
I'm surprised I can't find anywhere a comparison between the energy contained in a kilo of hay from pure ryegrass and the energy from a kilo of haylage from grass grown side by side. We really do need to know!
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Blurr said:
http://www.caleya.es/equino/spa/wp-...rved-as-hay-haylage-or-silage-C.E.-Muller.pdf

The link above is to a paper which compares the preference of horses for hay/silage/haylage made from the same grass, and in the paper are tables containing the chemical composition of each, including digestible organic matter and metabolizable energy. These show the changes in the forage due to the type of conservation process.
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Yeah!!!!

Thank you.

I need to analyse it properly, but it appears to show that the digestible energy in haylage is lower than that in hay. When I've got my thinking brain on instead of just woken up from an invalid's afternoon sleep, I'll come back and update.
 
AShetlandBitMeOnce said:
Extremely dim question here but why are cows fed silage and not haylage? And wouldn't it be fairly unpalatable once it has gone vinegary? I certainly know that when our haylage gets too hot it makes my eyes water!!
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Cows are ruminants so process their forage very differently - silage has to be anaerobic to keep edible, hence the silage claps which are tamped down hard. I think the deterioration process is slightly different - someone on here said it has to be leaf with no stems because stems enable air to get in, but I did know someone who kept horses on a dairy farm and fed them half and half silage and hay. They all ate the silage first!. Because it isn't dry enough for any soil to drop out in the making process there is a risk of botulism which ruminants systems seem to be able to deal with but I'm not sure how much of that is scaremongering.
 
ycbm said:
Yeah!!!!

Thank you.

I need to analyse it properly, but it appears to show that the digestible energy in haylage is lower than that in hay. When I've got my thinking brain on instead of just woken up from an invalid's afternoon sleep, I'll come back and update.
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OK, correct me if I'm wrong please.

the results of that study show that when taken from the same grass, haylage is the same or very slightly lower in energy per kilo of dry matter. That means that fed out of the bale, taking the water content into account, haylage is very much lower in energy per kilo than hay. So when feeding by weight, you would need to feed a lot more haylage for the same energy.

Haylage's reputation, I think, has come from two things. One, that if you feed ad lib that study shows they will eat a lot more. Two, if they eat that volume they are getting a fair bit more acid, and that's likely to turn a fair few horses fizzy with hind gut issues.
 
Oh dear, I'm even more confused now, study seems to say that WSC is slightly higher in haylage than hay, which is the opposite of what I've always been lead to believe.
 
MrsNorris said:
Oh dear, I'm even more confused now, study seems to say that WSC is slightly higher in haylage than hay, which is the opposite of what I've always been lead to believe.
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Where are you getting that from? The table I'm looking at gives WSC for hay as 101, whilst the haylages were 71 and 69.
 
Haylage is a lot higher in protein than hay as it is wrapped quicker so therefore doesn't have as much time to dry; hay usually gets baled after 5 days to a week, whereas haylage can be done from anywhere from 2 to 3 days after cut.
With some horses it can be like rocket fuel and give them a tonne of energy but with some horses it is fine, if you are going to give your horses haylage then make sure that it was tested to see how much protein it has in it as it could potentially give your horse colic.

If your hay is a bit dusty so your horse was coughing I highly rev omen getting a hay steamer, I have one and couldn't live without it. What it does it steams the hay getting rid of all the dust and out comes gorgeous hay, it is especially nice in the winter as it comes out warm and you can give it to your horse straight away- I will leave the link as this is the brand I use and is superb: https://www.haygain.co.uk

I hope this helped 😊
 
TGM said:
Where are you getting that from? The table I'm looking at gives WSC for hay as 101, whilst the haylages were 71 and 69.
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Oh yes, sorry must have scrolled too fast on this tablet, went up to table 2 without realising, that makes far more sense!
 
JillA said:
Cows are ruminants so process their forage very differently - silage has to be anaerobic to keep edible, hence the silage claps which are tamped down hard. I think the deterioration process is slightly different - someone on here said it has to be leaf with no stems because stems enable air to get in, but I did know someone who kept horses on a dairy farm and fed them half and half silage and hay. They all ate the silage first!. Because it isn't dry enough for any soil to drop out in the making process there is a risk of botulism which ruminants systems seem to be able to deal with but I'm not sure how much of that is scaremongering.
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The acid in properly made silage and indeed haylage will kill off the botulism organism the problem can arise if you feed bales that are not airtight from day one after making as any punctured later will already have had the organism dealt with. Its not just soil in the bale that can cause botulism . indeed anything dead and decaying within a bale can also cause it . A dairy herd in wales lost 160 cows a year or two back with botulism caused by a carcass in the clamp
 
ycbm said:
Not according to the study above.
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Thats in Sweden not really relevant to uk conditions for several reasons . Otherwise guess making haylage is a waste of time.
All I can tell you is all our analysis come back on average 10% higher than hay . For a rule of thumb drilled into me in my youth for every day grass lays cut you will lose 5% of its feed value and if it rains more.
 
popsdosh said:
Thats in Sweden not really relevant to uk conditions for several reasons . Otherwise guess making haylage is a waste of time.
All I can tell you is all our analysis come back on average 10% higher than hay . For a rule of thumb drilled into me in my youth for every day grass lays cut you will lose 5% of its feed value and if it rains more.
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The study says it was baled more than a day after the higher water content haylage, and there was still more energy in it than in the haylage. Sweden or not, surely that shows what you were taught when young does not stack up against the actual science?

And going back to the original question, even if that was true, and you baled at five days difference, that would be 25% gone, but because of its lower water content, the hay would still have more energy in it per kilo from the bale as fed than haylage made from the same grass.
 
Just goes to show you can't generalise. There are "averages" and unless everyone wants to spend £40 a pop analysing each sq. acre of grass every week then I guess you look at the horse in front of you and if it's looking well on what you feed it, then give yourself a pat on the back.
 
ycbm said:
The study says it was baled more than a day after the higher water content haylage, and there was still more energy in it than in the haylage. Sweden or not, surely that shows what you were taught when young does not stack up against the actual science?

And going back to the original question, even if that was true, and you baled at five days difference, that would be 25% gone, but because of its lower water content, the hay would still have more energy in it per kilo from the bale as fed than haylage made from the same grass.
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Indeed a kilogram of hay will have higher nutrients than a kilogram of haylage as fed ( I had already stated that ) however that is not the logical way of comparing. However logic never works for you.
Why does every piece of literature you read tell you that haylage has higher nutrient density than hay if its not the case . I could if I could be bothered find no end of studies that prove my point but at the moment I really dont have the time to argue. My degree in grassland management at Newcastle was clearly wasted. Anyway off to bale more haylage!
 
tallyho! said:
Just goes to show you can't generalise. There are "averages" and unless everyone wants to spend £40 a pop analysing each sq. acre of grass every week then I guess you look at the horse in front of you and if it's looking well on what you feed it, then give yourself a pat on the back.
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I think they've gone off on one, tallyho. I feel I'm sitting in a room of maths geeks.
 
9tails said:
I think they've gone off on one, tallyho. I feel I'm sitting in a room of maths geeks.
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All you need to know is that haylage does not contain more energy than hay, it contains less.

If it makes your horse fizzy it's either because of the type of grass that's in it, the amount your horse is eating of it, or the acid upsetting the gut.
 
ycbm said:
All you need to know is that haylage does not contain more energy than hay, it contains less.

If it makes your horse fizzy it's either because of the type of grass that's in it, the amount your horse is eating of it, or the acid upsetting the gut.
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Definitely not type then for "my" hay as its off the same field.
 
ycbm said:
All you need to know is that haylage does not contain more energy than hay, it contains less.

If it makes your horse fizzy it's either because of the type of grass that's in it, the amount your horse is eating of it, or the acid upsetting the gut.
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The biggest influence may be the protein content . http://mylandgrass.com/en/hay-or-haylage-horses-comparison. I think this bears out most of what I have been saying Of course the DEH is slightly lower but I had already told you that because some of the sugars are used to bring about the fermentation process. However the overall feed value is far superior. Do you know what excess protein in the horses diet gets broken down too,yes energy. more rain now glad I havent got hay laying down spoiling still another 500 haylage in the stack from this morning.
 
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