hay vs haylage

debsflo

debsflo

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due to lack of last years hay due to feed haylage. out of interest do most of you feed hay or haylage as preference or both. and if haylage do you use the high fibre/low protein stuff. having been whittling about the weather and floods my new worry is hay .
 
We use both, I have a retired horse with a dust allergy she has Hayledge, my eventer has hayledge our broodmare has 50/50 and our 14.2 pony just has hay. They are all doing very well this way, in the winter they all have hayledge and then they get hard feed on top accordingly, thought this has proved to be significantly less than when they were on hay.

Last winter we fed 4 horses as much hayledge as they could eat overnight then they are turned out on (minimal) grass during day and a large bale costing £15 lasted them all about 9 or 10 days so proved alot cheaper than hay and also saved a bit on the reduced amount of hard feed required.

It really depends on what type of horse(s) you are feeding, if you have good dooers you may find hayledge to fattening during the summer months, the small bales are very expensive and I would rather feed good quality hay than these.
 
mine doesnt get hayledge-gave it to him once and he blew up like a balloon!!!! he is a 13.3hh new forest with a tendancy for a belly so he now gets short grass, a few handfuls of hardfeed and some hay when he comes in!! so in short my answer is i prefer hay and if i need to supplement i prefer to up hay and re-look at hard feed.
 
I have a 16.2 MW and OH has a 16.2 ISH both have ad lib high fibre/low protein haylage (OH's mare goes mad on high protein)
 
If you have good dooers you may find hayledge to fattening, also if you are only feeding two horses you wouldnt use the large bales up in time and the small bales are quite expensive in comparison to hay. If you can get hay at a reasonable price i would stick with that.

To be honest I have not noticed a difference in enery levels in any of the horses since feeding hayledge but i guess every horse is different.
 
pony, poor doer problem is no 2006 hay available so will have to give haylage. just wondered how many prefer haylage and have no problem
 
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