Moving to haylage from hay

[mar2505]

My yard is moving to haylage, I have no experience of this and wondered how it affects the horse. My horse is a good doer and last night he had half and half in his net and went mad for the haylage. A bit like a child with sweets. Does it have any side affects, does it out weight on (not much grass at all at my yard) and how much do you feed compared toi hay? any advice appreciated

 

[Creaturescape]

I moved yards a month and a half ago and switched from hay to haylage. I asked the other liveries the same questions.

There is hay there too and most people prefer feeding a mix of the two. They don't seem to eat as much haylage as they do hay and won't eat any thats left over in the net the next night unless they are a bit greedy so theres no point filling the net right up.

I've just trialled and errored until i know how much to put in the net.

 

[BigRed]

You need to weigh your normal haynet and give him the same weight in haylage. Most horses will prefer haylage and the problem is that they stuff it quick and then complain they are hungry, this leads to the owner giving them more - which they don't need, and so the horse gets fat.

This is why you can buy special haylage nets with smaller holes, to slow them down.

If the haylage is good, you ought to be able to cut the amount of hard feed down, quite dramatically. My mare only gets chaff and her balancer when being fed haylage.

 

[DuckToller]

I was always told that because haylage contains more moisture, it weighs more, so you need to feed more weight to achieve the same volume!

But I feed ad lib anyway, and they do stuff themselves at first but always settle down after a week or two.

 

[kellyeaton]

you need togive more haylege than hay due to the weight difference you say your horse is a good doer so personally i would be soaking your haylege or yes your horse will put weight on!