how much haylage vs hay for winter?

mandwhy

mandwhy

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Just wondering about whether I should get haylage instead of hay or a combination of both for winter? And how on earth I know how much!

He is a 16.3 TB and is quite a good doer just on grass at the moment and getting slightly round, but there has been lots of grass for him. He lives out 24/7 and I should be investing in a shelter.

So I'm thinking the equivalent of 5 ish small bales of hay a week, so how much is that in round bales and would I order drastically less for haylage or about the same?

Any vague estimates would be super helpful as I don't even know how many small bales are in a round bale!
 
mandwhy said:
So I'm thinking the equivalent of 5 ish small bales of hay a week, so how much is that in round bales and would I order drastically less for haylage or about the same?
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I would have thought you'd go through at least of bale of hay a day once winter is really here, and the grass has lost it's goodness, surely?
 
Oki doke, 7 - 8 small bales then? I have never had to do this before so was basing that on my friend's tb last winter. My share horse over winter had round bales of haylage, would much rather order too much than too little! There will be a bit of grass left though as just moved to new field :-)
 
mine would get through almost a bale of hay a day each but in depths of winter this would bankrupt me so mid winter they have one big bale haylage between them (2 of them) every 10 days adlib. beginning and end of winter I use small bale hay as they wont get through big bale haylage quick enough.

I am always amazed how little hay some people feed - I have around 100 bales for beginning/end of winter for them plus grazing - I usually end up buying around 10 big bales of haylage and them sometimes some small bale haylage end of winter if I run out of hay and grass not through
 
In winter my 17.1hh WB (good doer) goes through a big round bale in 2-3 weeks (if in fairly often).... or a 'euro' bale (3' x 6' bale) in 3-4 weeks (if in fairly often), this is feeding ad-lib, and also putting hay in the field....

If living out 24/7, then I would personally feed Haylage........
 
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