Haylage sending horse through the roof??

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cobface

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My tb mare is very sensitive to heating feeds, alfa-a, out-shine etc, she is currently on barley which seems to be okay.
I need to get some weight on her and the previous meadow hay we were getting in has now gone and the only hay they have left isnt any good
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they have offered a very high quality haylage to me, baled just 2 days before the super fine meadow hay she was having. I am very tempted to buy it in, £25 per large bale and it should last up to 10 days. Thing is i really dont want to use something that is going to send her loopy again, i cannot deal with her riding wise when she hotted up - she turns into this crazy rearing/broncing monster!!!
So how likely is haylage to affect her behaviour??
 
I'd imagine she would go a little bit 'energetic' on it - my 2 love it but they do change their behaviour slightly - not in a bad way but you can tell that they have a lot more energy.
 
Personally i think it is peoples mind when they think haylege makes horses hyper, if that was the case nobody would ever turn out their horses in the spring grass....

If your horse is fresh you need more excercise and more turnout.

Keeping them in makes them fresh, nothing else!!!!
 
Most of our lot went a bit sharper when they started on haylage this autumn - one of them got VERY silly - thought he could jump a 20' hedge so he's on hay (much to his disgust). The sensible Irish boy stayed a seinsible Irish boy.... depends completely on the horse, its temperament and the efficiency of its digestive system.

do you have the opportunity to test a sample and see the nutritional content - you should have a better idea of whether it'll affect her.

Daisychain - don't disagree with the exercise/turnout tho
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It depends on the moisture content of it, if it is dry just like hay but wrapped you should be fine, if it is wet but not as wet as silage would predict that it would send her through the roof, we have a livery who feeds half wet haylage and half dry haylage i.e she feeds two bales at the same time, if she ups the wet haylage then her horses become very hyper if she feeds more dry than wet they act as normal.
 
Hmmm. Well my boy went MENTAL when I had to give him haylage for a week when I couldn't wet his hay (pipes frozen) so I definitely wouldn't do that again. The rearing, broncing and general silliness were most definitely not in my imagination! Went back to normal laid-back donkeyness as soon as he went back on hay. Some horses are just very sensitive to their food. He's a really good doer and is only on a balancer and Hifi Lite. Can you try a smaller bale to see how it works out?
 
The only way to be certain is to try it! I definitely think it depends on the quality of the haylage and the horse himself. My TB became very highly strung and edgy on haylage, he is the same if he has too much spring grass, bouncing around like an idiot and ready to explode all the time. The trick with him is ad lib good quality hay, fibre all the way feed wise and no sugar or cereal. My friend, on the other hand, feeds her 1/2tb, 1/2 id on good haylage and he never changes his personality, always horizontal.
 
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