Hay not been cut yet!🙈

I always leave our winter grazing for foggage. For good doers it's way better than hay as hay is preserved high summer grass and full of DE accordingly, whereas foggage is basically just cellulose and lignin - great for keeping the gut in good health without any of the drawbacks of ad lib forage. The only thing to watch out for is moulds. We have ergot in wet years so it's topped then. This year although wet for Norfolk has been okay re ergot so we have a great crop for the winter.
 
Muddy unicorn said:
We have a six acre field which I’d been hoping to cut for hay but so far haven’t had a dry enough spell and I’m not convinced we’re going to get it done at all now.

It’s their winter field so at some point I will need to get them onto it. Would we be better off flailing it and letting it rest for a few weeks or be leaving it as standing hay? They tend not to eat the long seedy bits when they’re still in the ground so wondering if they’ll just trample it?
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Let them trample what they don't want to eat. This will benefit soil health and pay dividends in future years. Even if it might feel like a bit of a waste at the time.
 
Ours was made in June here in Northumberland and I’m so glad we decided to cut even though it was early. It’s hard to remember how hot and dry the weather was, hay made and baled in three days! The barn is full. There has never been a dry time since. Good luck to everyone still needing to cut. Usually by September our days aren’t long enough to dry hay even in good weather.
 
We're still hoping for a 2nd cut, it's still standing nicely but would need a fair amount of good weather to get it dried.

Ours is all haylage and wrapped hay. I think it's going to be too rich for the porky cob if I don't get a 2nd cut as hay.

Not sure what I'll do, seem to be plenty of small bales if hay about at the moment at the usual price but it'll be June cut so I'll have to soak it.
 
JackFrost said:
Advice please - I have never fed haylage and always been wary of it, much preferring hay, but this year I might have to!

What are the risks, what to look out for etc?

I've never found standing hay lasts like dried baled, and mine seem to want the dried summer hay regardless of how much foggage there is.
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Haylage tends to be lower in sugar than hay but also higher in protein,.so it may provide too much energy to some horses (not always though). As the moisture content is higher than hay , you need to feed a fair bit more of it than hay for the same fibre content. If you've only got 1-2 horses to feed, bales of haylage would probably get wasted as after opening you do need to feed it within a few days.
I don't think there are any risks to feeding haylage other than that it can provide some horses too much energy and it goes off quickly after opening.
 
With any forage you really need analysis to know what levels of things it’s giving appearance can be very deceptive .
Failing that you can let the horses tell you look at the dropping watch how they behave that’s the old way .

One of my horses is very sensitive to forage he probably suffered some worm damage in his youth so I have to experiment with him one thing that does help is feeding something like top chop zero along side anything that makes him too loose .
The last two winters he’s wintered out and that does help.
Feeding very slightly dampened bran seems to help as well .
 
My hay supplier is tearing his hair out. They have 100 acres to cut before 1/9 and just can't get a weather window to do it. His supply in the barns is almost gone. He's probably going to have to make haylage rather than hay, but he says the wraps are in short supply as everyone is in the same boat. I have 2 acres which haven't been grazed since last winter, so I'm hoping I can get my lot out on there later, as long as we don't get bloody ergot on it. Honestly questioning my life choices ATM!
 
I would just sit tight and wait. This is not the first wet summer. We have at least 2, possibly 3 summers in a row like this in the mid 2000's.
In one of those years my hay was made at the end of September. It was lovely hay and the horses did well on it.

I have had several lots of Sept hay over the years with no problem.
 
It's going to be interesting to see what gets cut around us. I'm strip grazing & alot of the grass is starting to rot where it has fallen over. The fallen seeds are growing on top of the mat of grass. If this was hay field then it couldn't be used.
Luckily I've almost finished strip grazing & ready to go back to the start, which all looks great.
Local dairy farmer only just managed to cut & get his silage & get it in with the 1 1/2 dry days last week.
 
Same here - tractors are out in force and allowing a good few mins spare if I want to go anywhere as without fail there'll be at least one on the roads.

We managed to sneak making our hay in the only couple of dry days in July. So relieved we risked it. The weather is looking drier from Saturday so crossing my fingers for all those who have still to cut theirs.
 
After torrential rain (forecast) all day on Monday it was supposed to be clear and getting warmer this week. Instead we had torrential rain again overnight on Tuesday, miserable drizzle today and more heavy rain tonight 😩. It feels like it will never be warm and dry ever again 😬
 
A field across the lane from us was cut on Wed, turned on Thurs, looked nice but got wet yesterday. I would have left cutting it till at least Thurs pm so that it didn't get wet once it had started making. Such a shame to see potentially nice hay spoiled by being cut too close to incoming bad weather.
 
Spoke to my hay supplier. Hes got a fair bit of good June hay and is waiting to do a second cut. He says there is a lot of rubbish hay being cut at the moment so hes hanging on for a more settled spell. Most hay thats been cut this week has got wet at some stage.
 
We have nothing from our guy. It’s been too wet for hay. He’s done haylage and says he’s doing wrapped hay but I’m questioning that as surely he can’t do wrapped hay if he hasn’t made hay!
 
There has been no hay made by any of our neighbours, they got a lot of fields done this week for haylage fortunately. There was nothing on the fields early June and it's rained constantly since.
 
Barn fires are a real worry.

We've left 70 round bales of hay we made last week still on the field to sweat out a bit before risking bringing it indoors.
 
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