Silage and Haylage

[Matafleur]

Can anyone tell me the difference in how these are made?

I usually feed our own hay but I am considering feeding my new horse the silage that the cattle are fed. I'm not sure that it is true silage from what I have googled.

Ours is made at the same time we make the hay but baled two days earlier. The same grasses are used and really the only thing that determines if a field will be hay or silage is the weather forecast!

OH is totally anti horse and has no idea how haylage is made!

Any idea if the silage will be suitable or far too rich? She is not a good doer.

Thanks

 

[mrdarcy]

You should never feed cow silage to horses - it's far too fermented and rich. It could kill your horse. Cows have four stomachs and the ability to digest silage - horses don't.

Silage isn't baled but cut and usually very quickly (a day or two at most) put into huge silage clamps (silos) with black plastic on top and the whole thing weighed down by tyres. It continues to ferment growing richer and richer until you finally feed it. When you feed it the water content is still very high and it will feel damp to the touch and smell VERY pungent.

Haylage is baled a few days later than silage is collected and therefore is much drier. It's baled and wrapped immediately to be air tight. This stops it fermenting any further. It should more resemble hay when you unwrap it and should smell sweet not pungent like silage.

Hay is baled last and only when the cut grass has dried so no risk of fermentation.

It might be what you call silage is more like haylage but even so I would be very wary of feeding it to horses. Anything produced to feed cows tends to be much richer as they can tolerate a richer diet.

 

[Matafleur]

Ours sounds very much like haylege in that case. It is baled and wrapped. It doesn't have anything added to it.

I fed the cows this evening in a rare attempt to curry favour and it didn't feel much different from the hay and smelt quite nice actually.

 

[martlin]

silage can be baled as well.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

There's a definitive article on silage/haylage in this month's Horse (or Your Horse or Horse & Rider, can't remember!) You CAN feed silage to horses but it is very acidic and (a) many horses will just refuse to eat it coz they don't like the taste and (b) it can cause scouring and bellyaches. You need to be very careful too because silage can sometimes have soil dragged into it as part of the baling/gathering process and this can cause botulism poisoning. Mind you, soil can sometimes get into haylage too! Personally, I'd never feed silage to a horse.

 

[mcooper]

Proper silage intended for cows is cut before the seed heads are out, typically early May. This is when it is at its most digestable.
It is cut, baled and wrapped at a moisture level of approx 50% and will be more acidic than haylage.

The same grass field could be left a further 3 weeks before cutting when the seed heads are fully out and cut and baled in the same manner at 30? moisture ,but the fibre content will be higher and so will the pH. It still ferments the same ways as silage. The horrid smell you get with 'off' silage and haylage is the butyric acid which is formed of a bale gets a hole in it or has been open too long .

So in answer to your question, dryish, stemmy/stalky silage will really be haylage for cows but most farmers call all wrapped grass 'silage '

HTH

Mark

Mark

 

[druid]

Slage is NOT fatal for horses to consoume at all. It is merely unpalatable and high in protein neither of which is desirable in forage.

This is such a common misconception which people repeat blindly without researching it