Haylage question

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Carolina24

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So after my last thread around how much to feed my Arab x ...
well I was feeding him in the morning some fast fibre with chaff and then on a night he was having a haynet with 3 slices of hay. this had worked out fine as he'd have a little hay left on a morning and seemed quite content on that amount.

The rest of the yard have moved to haylage and due to price I decided it would be best too, so last night he had 6 kg of haylage ( that's about 2kg MORE THAN the weight of the hay ) he had eaten it all by this morning so gave him breakfast and turned him out.

Can anyone recommend how much more I should feed him shall I try and pop a slice of hay in too tonight and see how he gets on ?
 
Most of them will pig out on good haylage I'm afraid, which is why I had 4 of them on two big bales a week last winter (in field obviously). Result lots of high fat scoring heffers! Sounds like you are about right IMO. If you want to put in hay for reassurance then that's probably a good idea.
 
scarymare said:
Most of them will pig out on good haylage I'm afraid, which is why I had 4 of them on two big bales a week last winter (in field obviously). Result lots of high fat scoring heffers! Sounds like you are about right IMO. If you want to put in hay for reassurance then that's probably a good idea.
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It's 2nd cut haylage but yes he does seem to have enjoyed it, want to keep weight on him with him been Arab so will probably just see how he does, he was worked yesterday only for half an hour but probably made him extra hungru we'll see how tonight goes. Might just drop the extra hay in at the weekends as I won't be down the yard as early...
 
I always aim for mine to have a little bit left in their haynets when i get there in a morning so i would possibly give him 2 haynets or just fill it more.

Use a haylage net though, these have smaller holes so it takes longer to eat or 2 haynets inside each other.

He needs to trickle feed throughout the night, obviously he will have gorged more than usual with the change from hay to haylage but that will settle down.

Don't worry if you get there and he has lots left, you can use that for the next night, at least you'll know he's been eating all night.
 
you will have go watch his weight but most of mine seem to stop pigging out a while I would add a slice of hay to his net, I do this and although They often leave it it means they are not left with nothing to eat when they are in hardwork,hunting, they get it add lib ( they get no hard food just a balancer ) and they look great but the dressage horse and young ones you do have to watch weight gain on add lib. My supplier has just launched a Lite version so am trying that on my fatty at the moment as I would rather give no hay
 
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