Horsehage

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mickey

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I have recently changed my horse from hay to horsehage. We buy it from the feed merchants and it comes in shrink wrapped bags - One of these bags lasts him 2-3 days.

Now, there are 2 types of horsehage we can buy - one is a regular horsehage and the other a lower energy one suitable for laminitics.

He's normally on the normal one, but the yard bought the lower calorie one by mistake. We opened 2 bales of this, both were very sticky and smelt more like silage than horsehage. Is this normal?? I am worried that something has gone wrong and that this could infact be very rich? It is more sticky and much more smelly than the 'normal' type which smells sweet. This smells almost horrible. Do you think something has gone wrong here or is this usual??
 
I'm a little confused by your post. Which one do you normally feed and which has the yard bought?

The blue is the lower protein. The green is very rich and does smell very strong. It is first cut and baled very quickly. I would be very careful that it doesn't send your horse loopy. You could try misixing it with hay / grass to up the bales that you have got, but it should be okay so long as you don't give him too much per day.
 
I normally feed the regular green type. The yard has bought the blue one by mistake. The blue one is the one I am concerned about as it smells like silage, incredibly rich smelling and very sticky. In the past I don't remember the blue one being so rich looking- I am wondering if something has gone wrong because it is far stonger smelling and far stickier than the green ones we have bought in the past few weeks.
 
The blue one is definately the lower protein one. I wouldn't be worried about changing to the blue one for a few bales. You sometimes get wetter bales - it might be that these are the new cut. Providing that there is no green / yellow mould on the bale you should be okay.

Just out of interest, which does you horse prefer? Mine love the wetter bales at first when we get one, then they go off them a bit!

If you are really worried, why not give Markways a call. The number is on the bag and they are very helpful.
 
Sounds like the recently-bought bales are off, and should be taken back to the feed merchant to swap for good ones! I wouldn't feed it if I were you!
 
I don't know if they're off - They don't appear to have any obvious mould. Because it seems to be so rich my horse is loving it - This I was surprised at because in the past the would only eat the green one. At the moment I am mixing it with hay so he does not get too much -- although I really want him off hay so once we get some green bales in he'll be just on that....
 
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