Soaking haylage (not hay) to remove sugars?

L&B

L&B

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Okay, so, I have been told to treat my TB (yes TB!!) as if he were a pony with lammi by my vet & also physio.
He has had issues with his feet (thin soles, broken-back, all toe/no heel) and since I have had him has always been warm in them - currently in imprints & getting back on track. Although, 2weeks ago we noticed a slight pulse too.

So, since his diet changed in hard feed (now with supplements also), this prompted me to move from haylage to hay as a result to warm/pulsey feet.

Now, it's becoming difficult to find hay and in our area at the moment with it being in short supply, it is SO hard to get hold of, not to mention expensive due to this.
Our yard however, buys in haylage in bulk and it is included in our livery costs.

So my question really is - can you soak haylage to remove sugars? If so how long for? And does it need to be fed dry?

Thankyou x

ETA: I spoke to my YO who says the haylage whilst it is good, isn't from top quality fertilised and carefully produced crops... And she'd imagine if we had it tested it would be low-sugar anyhow. But it seems my lad is v sensitive, so I don't want to just take this as fact.
 
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I thought I read that the water soluble sugars (that are in hay - which can be soaked out), get mainly changed to protein by the pickling process involved in making haylage...............that said I can find where I read that...............so I may have dreamed it!

That said I have heard of people soaking haylage, but I would think you would need to be careful as suspect it would go rank quickly.
 
You shouldn't soak haylage, it is a fermented product and you could be encouraging growth of harmfuls like clostridia, listeria etc. You will also be releasing and spreading any toxic effluents such as ragwort poison (most commercially produced haylage has this apparently).

BUT - theoretical risk as would take a long time for the numbers of these becoming critical, certainly not in 12 hours - my haylage doesn't have ragwort either so never been sure about the above statement of 'fact'.

I wouldn't - but then I do feed big bale haylage and it rained all night last night, so mine are effectively eating soaked I suppose.
 
I have soaked haylage with good results. However, it is a PITA especially in freezing weather and so now I feed my lami prone mare Marksway hi fibre haylage which was better for her even than soaked hay. However it does get expensive and so I have sent some samples of my hi fibre large bale haylage off for analysis to see if I can safely feed it to her. You can send samples off for analysis to www.forageplus.com. It costs around £27 for a nutritional analysis that will tell you if your haylage is suitable to feed (unsoaked) to your mare.
 
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