How long do you feed forage for over winter?

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parsley

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I have ordered my hayledge for the winter and have been humming about how long I will have to feed it for. I have a cob and shetland on 4 acres of nice grass. In the end I opted for beginning of Dec to end of April. What doe the rest of you do?
 
Ehm..... have been feeding haylage for the last 5 weeks now and expect it to go on until May........
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Ehm..... have been feeding haylage for the last 5 weeks now and expect it to go on until May........
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Oh - poor you! I am in East Anglia so much further south - the grass is still growing well here
 
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My horses have access to haylage all the time but they are TB's.

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Mine are quite definatly not TBs!
 
as my mare is getting older she seems to need more, she used to be a good doer, but not any more, i have been feeding hay all year round pretty much, she just has even more now its getting colder
years ago, she needed very little extra over winter, hardly needed rugging, didnt need that much feed, but at 18yrs old she requires more all year round, bless her
 
Last year ours had ad-lib hay from October till May. It depends what the temperature's like as this determines if the grass is still growing. We haven't started putting the hay out this year but plan to in a few weeks. I have a warmblood, a 7/8 tb and a cob X and they're all slightly overweight so I don't want to start just yet.
 
I suppose they do need more looking after as they get older - mine are both 10 to 12 so they are fairly fit and a bit fat at the moment
 
I think my grass is still growing well - they have 4 paddocks and a week on each so I'm hoping to get at least another round of grazing off of each as they last had horses on in April.
 
TBH I think they need the choice of hay ALL winter until spring and the grass starts growing again. Theyll soon tell you if there's enough grass or not as they'll ignore the haylage if so. My 5 have had access to hay from end of September and will do until probably April-ish. There is no nutrition in grass over the winter so IMO they do need the fibre from hay / haylage no matter what type / age etc. they are.
 
It's always a bit hard to gauge because of course it depends on what the winter is like. I start feeding mine hay in the field when they start to hang around by the gate looking hopeful, and continue until they stop eating it in preference to the grass. I started putting a few sections out this week. All mine are fed a feed balancer hard feed year round as they are growing.
 
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