Horses won't eat Haylage at new yard?

[PalominoMare]

Hi

I have two horses that have been kept in on box rest with good quality ad-lib hay. As they can now be turned out I moved them back to my house on Friday and have been feeding them haylage that was made from our fields last summer. It was cut late and is the wet smelly stuff that sticks to your pores! They are turned out during the day on grass with good length and brought in at night and have been standing all night not touching the haylage. I make sure their nets are fresh but it's not making a difference.

I am stuck with the stuff now as local hay suppliers are running low and not wanting more customers so I can't get access to hay and I can't get any of the farmers to take it for their cows or grass liveries either.

Just wondering if they are being fussy as they loved their dry hay and they will soon get over it once they realise that's all they're getting or if I should be buying in some silvermoor or similar? Don't really want to go down that route as we've already spent the money to get the haylage made.

Thanks!

 

[Red-1]

Maybe they are eating more grass than you think now they are out?

I think if it were me I would bring some hay in if I were worried. I did this from 2 towns away one year, about 3 hours round trip plus loading, but worth it at the time. Do you have a trailer or lorry? At least then you can gauge how hungry they are, and maybe introduce the haylage slowly rather than in one go.

Where in the country are you, I know locally we have hay available, and maybe someone more local to you knows of someone with a stack they are not going to use?

 

[PalominoMare]

Many thanks. I think you are right and they are still enjoying the grass, it's longer than you would expect for this time of year (up to fetlocks). I made a pile of the haylage in my tack room at the weekend and some of it is quite dried out now so I'll give them that stuff tonight and see if they eat it. It's also snowing here now so they well be hungry when they come in.

I live near Glasgow and am sure I can get hay but my ideal scenario would be to swap bales with a farmer who makes both and I don't know many of them. I'm willing to do a very generous swap!

 

[PolarSkye]

Many thanks. I think you are right and they are still enjoying the grass, it's longer than you would expect for this time of year (up to fetlocks). I made a pile of the haylage in my tack room at the weekend and some of it is quite dried out now so I'll give them that stuff tonight and see if they eat it. It's also snowing here now so they well be hungry when they come in.

I live near Glasgow and am sure I can get hay but my ideal scenario would be to swap bales with a farmer who makes both and I don't know many of them. I'm willing to do a very generous swap!

This winter has been so relatively mild that horses just haven't needed the extra boost of haylage - the farmer who supplies us has dropped the price of his haylage just to shift it because his customers haven't bought so much - and my boy certainly isn't going through it as fast as he has in previous years.

P

 

[HaffiesRock]

Its a similar situation here. Our hay and haylage provider is usually running low on stocks at this time of year so I normally buy a few extra bales about now in case spring is slow to come. I asked the farmer last weekend how his stocks were and he said he still has around 3000 large bales left! They had numerous bumper crops last year and demand has been low so plenty around at a bargain rate.

That doesn't help you OP, I know.

I would guess they are just not hungry. See if they eat it tonight if there has been snow on the ground. If not, I would guess it has either gone off or it is more like silage. Either way I wouldn't feed it.

 

[PalominoMare]

Thanks all! I've only just learnt that the farmer who cut it for us has both hay and haylage and he also has cows so I'm hoping that he will take them away for me *crosses fingers tightly*. Old mare picked at her net last night but left 7/8ths of it and the yearling slept on hers so it's still not popular!!