Hay vs Hayladge

Bettyboo222

Bettyboo222

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I want to put B on haylege. She won't eat hay, but she has been eating nextdoors haylage. I went to order some haylage however the farmer said that this will give her diorehha and give her scour.

Is there any truth in this ?

Background is 44 year old welsh mare
 
I have just swopped my oldie over to horsehage as he too wouldn't eat his hay. I suspect they is more grass in the fields than I can actually see, but as he is well into his 30's I really didn't want him to drop off weight (he is stabled at night) by not eating anything overnight. The horsehage has not made him scour at all, however my eventer will scour if has too much horsehage.
 
Think it depends on what haylage you get. Iv feed horsehage ryegrass which I found really good but expensive, EH haylage even more expensive and gave my horse a runny bottom(!) and most recently used small baled haylage (the mini versions of big square baled stuff) which was cheapest but really good quality and I never had problems with. Atm were on big baled haylage as it comes with our livery but its really inconsistant, althought saying that I still have no problems with it.
 
There are many different types of haylage made from different grasses, cut at different times of year, and with widely differing protein, fibre, sugar and water content. So whilst some might cause problems in sensitive animals, others won't.

For what it is worth, I have fed a wide variety of animals on big bale meadow haylage, locally produced small bale haylage and various varieties of Horsehage without any diarrhoea or scouring at all.
 
Bettyboo222 said:
I want to put B on haylege. She won't eat hay, but she has been eating nextdoors haylage. I went to order some haylage however the farmer said that this will give her diorehha and give her scour.

Is there any truth in this ?

Background is 44 year old welsh mare
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Think the farmer has possibly misheard you and is thinking of silage???

It depends on the grade of haylage and the quality of the grassland its been cut from but as a rule you are meant to feed twice as much haylage as hay as it has twice the water content, but in reality it is quite high in calories/sugar and therefore can be more fattening.

I'm not a feed guru so can't really advise but I feed my horse on it, and it doesn't send him mental. BUt it does make him fat!

Have you thought about a hay replacer for your mare. If she is 44 her teeth might not be grinding her food so well as they used to, so something like Alfa A or similar with higher fibre would be more beneficial and keep her warmer this winter too. I presume you get her teeth checked twice a year?
 
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It may be that her teeth aren't up to hay at her advanced age - will she eat dampened chaff? if so, you could use a garden shredder to chop her hay (you might have to put it through a couple of times) unless you have access to a chaff cutter?
 
i swapped both my horses, a 16hh warmblood and a mini onto haylage as they wouldnt eat hay and were wasting it. i feed the high fibre haylage which is second or third cut so less protein. both of mine love it and eat every scrap. as long as you introduce gradually and try and give the low energy haylage she should be fine. i also feed pink powder and you can get haylage feed balancer as haylage is more acidic than hay. i really worried about colic etc but life is much easier..
 
Especially if you are changing over, I would start with the blue bag (high fibre variety) of horsehage, as it is later cut and not high energy and if she eats that then you can either stick with it or move up to something richer if she needs more weight on.
 
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