Haylage question, do you need to..

M

Megibo

Well-Known Member
Joined
17 April 2011
Messages
4,233
Location
usually on my bum ...
Visit site
make changes to other areas of their diet..

moving my mare to a livery yard up the road but they only feed haylage. worked out she'll need 6kg of haylage overnight.

at the moment she's on soaked hay and a scoop of happy hoof. plan to change her diet gradually so by the time we move she's on just haylage. will her hard feed need to be changed?
what are the differences between hay and haylage apart from haylage being more sugary. she's a fattie so have to watch her weight, she's just right now. she'll be ridden 3 or 4 times a week.
as usual any help is helpful!
 
Hey, it can get tricky! Generally, you feed more haylage than hay as it contains more water so the fibre intake would be less otherwise. Saying that, the haylage I have been using is quite dry.

It has a higher nutritional value also so less hard feed is required. I feed it to my lami prone mare as she also has R.A.O and can't cope with even a small amount of soaked or steamed hay. I don't feed her anything else (other than grass obviously) and she seems to be fine with this.

I was worried at first about sugar contents etc but I've heard from lots of others that when they've had their hay/haylage tested nutritional wise, sometimes there is more sugar in the hay. Might be worth getting it tested if it worries you.

Hope that's helped a wee bit!
 
Haylage is usually cheaper than hay if you buy from you local farmer, the small bale horsehage types are much more expensive.

Haylage should theoretically be lower in sugars than hay as the sugar is used up in fermentation, some people suspect it is the acidity that can trigger laminitis in some ponies.

It is more conditioning than hay though so other hard feeds can usually be cut back or dropped.

A later cut higher fibre/lower energy haylage would probably be the best to go for.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top