Issues with haylage

Yes, my bales are so inconsistent at the moment. I bought 160 50 kg bales and some are dry and very nice (I prefer the dry haylage), some are dry and the horses don't like them, some are fine grass, some are coarse, some are fine and dry, others fine and moist, others course and dry and others course and moist. The horses gobble up the moist stuff and get the runs then I open another bale and it's completely different. Same supplier as last 2 years and never had a problem before. I am not complaining though as it seems some people are finding it difficult to get any at all. I have other yards ringing me to see if I will sell some. I won't as I know it is so scarce.
 
No, this year our haylage has been fab!! All from one supplier (farmer) We have had major issues with hay though
 
Hardly any hay here in North Cumbria, haylage from the farmer is excellent in the big bale, dont know about small bales though.
 
None at all i have an agreement with my supplier that i take all the damaged bales, so i do get a mixture of rye grass and meadow haylage.
But i have found this years crop to be more moist than last years.
Before i get shot down in flames for buying damaged bales, i spent years bailing my own haylage so i have a very good all round knowledge of the stuff.
 
Yeah been quite inconsistent.
We had one brilliant bale the horses loved it, then the second bale they all turned there noses up to. The supplier swapped this for another bale which they are happy to eat. The third bale we had delivered was damp so that was also swapped for a new one. Luckily our supplier is brilliant :)
 
Sounds like I have been lucky - no complaints here - I only have 2 horses and have used about 16 bales so far and they have all been good!
 
An interesting question. I have noticed this year that some suppliers' haylage gives my horses very, very running droppings. 2010 haylage from a previous excellent supplier was unuseable because of this causing me to try others - some of which also did the same. My theory is that some farmers have been spraying an additive onto the crop to either make it not go mouldy or in someway maximise yield. I do know one big supplier sprays 'lactobaccillus' onto the haylage. Could this be the problem, e.g. overuse.

My plea for this year is Farmers - please don't put anything on the haylage. Horses' tums are sensitive!
 
Yes. Three different "branded" suppliers. Some bags rancid, some
very wet, some very dry, some very stemmy, some just smell odd.
Last three deliveries have wasted half either because I won't
feed it, or they won't eat it. Would like to know more about
what the cause is as this is the first year I have had such
problems.
 
I'm on a yard which makes its own big round bales. I don't know much about the grass they grow etc. We've just started recently on last year's haylage and had a real mix - some bales are like fine lovely soft hay but a very short cut so we did wonder if it meant the grass hadn't grown as much last year, others are very coarse and dry almost straw like in texture and horses don't seem that keen, another bale has been still rapidly fermenting in the bale even when plastic off and giving off vile smell and heat, just seems no consistency though usually the cutting of the fields and the baling takes place at one time across a period of days I think. However the main factor is several of the horses on the yard have been quite fizzy on the new haylage. Was it a poor summer overall last year for forage growing?
 
For various reasons this year I found a new supplier, and he's brilliant. I've been through 30 large bales so far and the quality is fantastic and consistent. The grass is treated like a crop and re-seeded every three years. I'll be sticking with this guy!
 
Have had some probs in previous years with very strong chemically smelling batch from a very well known manufacturer of 'hage' but ironically this year havent had a single one Ive had to return. Maybe they know at the price it is now it better be faultless!
Also had probs with locally made haylage, lots of it mouldy last year, gave up buying that and just buy the nationally available double wrapped gold plated nuggets now...
 
Our new delivery of "branded" haylage smells really bad! Like off milk (sort of). The last load was fine but this one put our Welsh A off. We found 4 bales of the old batch the the pile and they are set aside for her alone now.
 
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