Haylage for a good dooer?

Hippona

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Think I may have to swap to haylage for the pony....he has developed a hay cough for the second year running.
Managed it last year with wetting the hay, but it was not a pleasant experience in the really cold weather....am thinking getting haylage would be easier but I'm worried about his waistline...he's nice and trim going into winter, albeit hairy and I want him to stay that way or even drop a little more before spring.
Is it possible to keep him trim on haylage without leaving him for long periods without forage? I like him to have ad lib hay as he doesn't get hard feed as such, just a scraping of Fast Fibre for his brewer's yeast..
Would it be better to buy the branded stuff as a big bale would get wasted?

Aaargh......head scratch time, advice appreciated :)
 

CobsGalore

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When got my good doer he had been on haylage all winter and was enormous!

Not saying it was all down to that, but personally I wouldn't feed it.

I've read some good tips on here about soaking hay in the winter; how were you doing it?
 

WelshD

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One of mine has a tendancy to put on weight but can cough a bit

I managed to get some pretty dry haylage last year that was more or less wrapped hay - that worked out very well. when that ran out I used small bale Horsehage - the high fibre one which was also fine
 

doriangrey

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If you go down the branded route, from memory I think horsehage do a low energy haylage. Small bags would probably work out very expensive though - don't forget it has a higher moisture content than hay so you have to feed more. I buy big bale haylage from a local farmer for my horses (retired tb and young connie - oh and 2 goats), 40 euro a bale. At the moment that's lasting about 3 weeks. I double net the pony as it's very palatable and she would inhale it (I tried a small hole haynet and she pulled it down in frustration). It can be very variable in texture but always good quality. My present bale is like very soft meadow hay, the last bale was much more stalky. If you don't like using haynets I would go for a brand I knew was low energy, but it's not cheap.
 

Hawks27

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Shop around and go look at quality of your local haylage providers, my man does 3 types of haylage and the one I buy from him is classed as a medium/dry its basically one up from hay not to sweet doesn't go off quickly is never dry or dusty its just fantastic and I do realise am very lucky my last mare was a very good doer and she coped fine on it though she always had it in small holed nets in stable and as we have loads of grass they only got piles in the field when it was frozen solid and covered in snow
the standard bales of haylage am use to on every livery yard ive worked for I wouldn't dream of feeding sapping wet and sickly sweet and go off in a few days way too much sugar for my liking
 

Inthesticks

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I feed all of my good doers on big bale haylage. They live out 24/7 rugless so dont get fat on it. It also helps that like WelshD mine is pretty dry.
If you compare the cost of small bale horsehage vs big bale, even if it goes off after 2 weeks its still more economical.
 

Hippona

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I'll have a chat with my supplier, see what he's got available.
A big bale would go off, the other two are fine on un- soaked hay so I buy large rounds.
I would love a steamer, but my yard is about 100m from my house and I don't have electricity there. If OH made space in the garage for one it may work...it's a thought for next year when we've done some building work.
 

Wheels

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If you could find a supplier of dry haylage in large bales, then why not just feed them all on that? From experience feeding one horse on small bale haylage works out very expensive
 
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