Haylage causing IBS (runny poo!)

[summerguest]

Has anybody else had this problem. One of my horses was fed better quality haylage last year and developed IBS. It went away in the summer but as soon as he came in for winter it restarted. Stopped the haylage and started soaking hay and it went away, but he started to cough up big blobs of mucus. Local supplier does 'wet hay' supposed to be inbetween hay and haylage and dust free. lovely stuff but obviously still too much like haylage as the runny poo has restarted. Apart from it not being too nice for the horse, its not nice on his lovely white ( now black) tail and his rug and leg straps are also covered (yuck!)
Is this a common issue with haylage? I'm not sure whats worse for the horse upset intestines or irritated lungs!! HELP! (ps hay is being soaked for 1/2 hour)

 

[smellsofhorse]

Hi. My horse has the same problem, he also has white legs and tail that always seemed to be green!
He had blooded checked and a worm count but nothing major showed up.
I give him pink powder to balance his gut and plenty if chaff.
But you can also get a haylage balancer and I tried global herds disreaze which helped.

 

[Lotty]

I know of someone who's horse has IBS, she was advised by her vet to immediately change from feeding her horse hayledge to feeding her hay and introduce a probiotic powder to her bucket feed - haylage does have a higher protein content.

I don't understand the bit where you said irritated lungs. If you're soaking your hay just to get rid of dust spores (30mins) then your horse shouldn't really be irritated

 

[dalidaydream]

I know a lot of people feed haylage but my pony can't tolerate it and you have to ask yourself why NAF felt there was a need to create Haylage Balancer

 

[lisab]

I've just had to change from green horsehage to blue. Used green for 7yrs with no probs but it's been different the last couple of months - smelt and looked different and was full of seed heads. His droppings went green and loose and smelly - which was not nice - but his behaviour was the real issue. My nice but sharp and bolshy horse turned into a dangerous unrideable maniac. I changed to blue last fri (and changed to cam n condition plus Magic). His poo went back to normal immediately and I rode him first time today and he was back to normal - still sharp but not psychotic. Try some different haylage. Blue HH works for me but it is v expensive and I only use HH because I have to (copd).

 

[summerguest]

Thanks for your replies. Its definitely the haylage, he's been on soaked hay for a week now and got a lovely clean botty! He has also stopped coughing up blobs of mucus so think it more the transition to stable life from field than they hay.(even though he's on rubber matting with sprinkles of shavings....obviously a sensitive soul!)