instead of hay or haylage???

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samnpaddy

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have just got new pony for my daughter who has been on haylage with his previous owner - my two big horses are on hay and i have 200 bales stored ready for the winter! obviously i dont want to go down the route of buying haylage just for 1 small pony - we simply wont use it up before it goes off - can anyone recommend a hay replacer or mix of feed that i can offer ad-lib as you would hay or haylage - (pony seems to cough when on hay whether its soaked or not!!!) saw something on tv suggesting sugar beet/chaff/pony nuts - 500g per 100g body weight soaked and left ad-lib for the day - the pony also needs to lose some weight!!!! - any advice appreciated - thanks
 
Spillers Happy Hoof or Spillers High Fibre cubes can both replace hay in the diet and are both low calorie.
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You can get those bales of haylage which are in smaller bags. Oh god, cant remember the name - its made by the same people who make some chaffs. It comes in white bags and different types of grass.

Otherwise I would personally feed Hi-Fi Lite or Good Doer chaff to the pony until you can figure something out! As could be rather expensive having to feed so much chaff all the time. I fed Hi-Fi Lite for a while earlier in the year to a lami pony because she'd got a bit bored of hay. Worked ok, but I think she would have got bored of that after a while too!

Is the pony inside when fed hay? I would consider (if possible) keeping the pony turned out 24/7 and feeding hay outside where it won't be nearly so dusty as in a stable.
 
the pony will be in for most of the winter as my grazing is limited and gets poached easily! i'm hopefully going to fence of a small area for him to stretch his legs a little during the day!
 
Do you mean Marksways HorseHage?

HorseHage is very good and a stabled pony would probably use one 20kg bale every two or three days. The bales are about £6 each if you are just buying a few and you can get different types of grass acordingy to the horse you are feeding.

I think small bale haylage would be your best bet. Much more natural and inexpensive than feeding cereals / hard feed in such large quantities.

The Horsehage website is http://www.horsehage.co.uk/, but you could probalby find a local supplier that does small bael haylage for less.
 
What type of pony is it?

Hi Fi lite is great for good doers, and can be soaked too. Redi Grass is meant to be good, but not too sure on the energy levels (never used it but would assume higher in energy than Hi Fi Lite).

I think if it's cost you're thinking of you might be better to stick to haylege if he's fine weight wise and ebergy wise on that.
 
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