Looking for something like meadow hay

[CrimsonDivine]

Greetings. I have a friend who requires dust-free packaged hay like meadow hay, which you can normally buy from pet shops but needs it for her ponies and the ones she's buying are too small and costly. Pretty much £5 for I think 1kg? or something like that. So I was wondering if anyone knew of anything? If not, are there any good alternatives to meadow hay that is safe for laminic horses and ponies? Cheers.

 

[Edgehog]

Something like this? https://www.efeed.co.uk/products/Haylage/Easy-Pack/Compressed-Hay

 

[CrimsonDivine]

It says on the product "Sealed to reduce dust and water contamination" but this doesn't mean they remove dust beforehand to make the product "dust-free" ?

 

[PapaverFollis]

Nag Bag do a bagged hay.

 

[ester]

There's a few dust extracted equine size versions available just googling required

https://www.farmandpetplace.co.uk/s...vale-bale-dust-extracted-meadow-hay-13kg.html
https://www.parkfarmoakley.co.uk/dust-extracted-super-hay-bagged-20kg-5319-p.asp

 

[ycbm]

Greetings. I have a friend who requires dust-free packaged hay like meadow hay, which you can normally buy from pet shops but needs it for her ponies and the ones she's buying are too small and costly. Pretty much £5 for I think 1kg? or something like that. So I was wondering if anyone knew of anything? If not, are there any good alternatives to meadow hay that is safe for laminic horses and ponies? Cheers.

Horsehage and Marksway both sell 20kg bales of dust free laminitic safe forage and Baillies in Lincolnshire have 2 types of low energy bigger bale haylage available.
.

 

[CrimsonDivine]

Horsehage and Marksway both sell 20kg bales of dust free laminitic safe forage and Baillies in Lincolnshire have 2 types of low energy bigger bale haylage available.
.

Yeah, I use Marksway Mollichop with my pony I believe. But I didn't think they did hay. Also, isn't Horsehage actually haylage?

 

[Auslander]

It's nigh on impossible to find dust extracted hay for horses. Haylage would be a better bet

 

[CrimsonDivine]

It's nigh on impossible to find dust extracted hay for horses. Haylage would be a better bet

Be as it may I was told by the owner that laminic horses can't have haylage? Though I have found this to be a debatable subject but it's her horses so I can only tell her so much. Just trying to look for something similar to what she's using without the overspending cus to me, it's rediculous to be paying £5 for little bags of hay so I offered to shop around for her as I could have sworn a local store had some meadow hay but apparently they don't now. So this is why I asked on here. Of course I am open to all suggestions, just saying I could have sworn haylage was not suitable?

 

[TGM]

The trouble with a lot of haylage is that you don't know how much sugar it contains (although the same could be said of hay). However Marksway do publish the starch/sugar content of their Horsehage on their website and it is very low, lower than that of average hay. I have used their High Fibre Horsehage very successfully for laminitics over the years and I currently feed it to a horse who ties up on normal big bale haylage. Obviously it is up to your friend what she chooses to do but you could direct her to the analysis available and let her make up her own mind.

 

[Elno]

The trouble with a lot of haylage is that you don't know how much sugar it contains (although the same could be said of hay). However Marksway do publish the starch/sugar content of their Horsehage on their website and it is very low, lower than that of average hay. I have used their High Fibre Horsehage very successfully for laminitics over the years and I currently feed it to a horse who ties up on normal big bale haylage. Obviously it is up to your friend what she chooses to do but you could direct her to the analysis available and let her make up her own mind.

That is why you should always analyze your hay/haylage ? Our last batch of hay (-20)had more sugar per kg drymatter than our haylage from the same year.

 

[Auslander]

Be as it may I was told by the owner that laminic horses can't have haylage? Though I have found this to be a debatable subject but it's her horses so I can only tell her so much. Just trying to look for something similar to what she's using without the overspending cus to me, it's rediculous to be paying £5 for little bags of hay so I offered to shop around for her as I could have sworn a local store had some meadow hay but apparently they don't now. So this is why I asked on here. Of course I am open to all suggestions, just saying I could have sworn haylage was not suitable?

It's a common misconception that haylage is high in sugar, as it smells sweet. It's usually lower in sugar than comparable hay, following fermentation. However, it is much more digestible than hay, so they can pack on the pounds a bit, if fed ad lib haylage. Haylage made from timothy hay would be my choice for a fatty/laminitic
The easiest option would probably be soaked hay -that'd sort out the dust and the sugars!

 

[CrimsonDivine]

Thanks for the responses and sorry for the delayed reply, been busy this weekend. It's my birthday today!

Anyway, I'll let her know about the timothy hay then leave it up to her. Again, thank you all for your feedback and suggestions.

 

[cauda equina]

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!

 

[CrimsonDivine]

Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!

thanks

 

[JackFrost]

?????

 

[Apizz2019]

Try forage plus. I had some lovely dust extracted, compressed Timothy hay bales. Expensive, but analysed which gave me peace of mind as we have an EMS pony.

 

[CrimsonDivine]

She's actually bought some HorseHage timothy haylage now, bought it yesterday. Was quite surprised she did but I'm glad that's all sorted out now. Why am i surprised? Cus it's quite often hard to convince her that haylage isn't as bad as people make it out to be, and other than this forum there are plenty of articles about timothy hay around the net that confirms it's safe for her ponies. But she's quite often set in her ways and sometimes won't listen. Oh well, alls well that ends well Again thank you all for your advice and feedback. Glad I got it sorted and now she's not wasting money on that rabbit food for her horses lol.

 

[Apizz2019]

She's actually bought some HorseHage timothy haylage now, bought it yesterday. Was quite surprised she did but I'm glad that's all sorted out now. Why am i surprised? Cus it's quite often hard to convince her that haylage isn't as bad as people make it out to be, and other than this forum there are plenty of articles about timothy hay around the net that confirms it's safe for her ponies. But she's quite often set in her ways and sometimes won't listen. Oh well, alls well that ends well Again thank you all for your advice and feedback. Glad I got it sorted and now she's not wasting money on that rabbit food for her horses lol.

Horsehage Timothy tipped our EMS pony over the edge. Perfect re sugars but the digestible energy is still too high.

It really is a minefield!

Glad you're sorted ?

 

[pistolpete]

Lots of low sugar hay is actually threshed rye grass which is often unsuitable for laminitic s too sadly. My experience is soaking the hay and mixing with barley straw gives best low calorie forage. Not very time efficient though!

 

[CrimsonDivine]

Lots of low sugar hay is actually threshed rye grass which is often unsuitable for laminitic s too sadly. My experience is soaking the hay and mixing with barley straw gives best low calorie forage. Not very time efficient though!

Really? huh. Kinda funny cus she's always fed them plain old ordinary in the past and never had a bought of laminitis during that time

 

[ycbm]

Really? huh. Kinda funny cus she's always fed them plain old ordinary in the past and never had a bought of laminitis during that time

Yet again CD, you scoff at good advice given by a well meaning poster. If your friend didn't have the NSC levels in her forage analysed, and didn't soak, then she took a chance (which she may not even have realised that she was taking) and got away with it.