soaking haylage

oscarwild

oscarwild

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My horse has been choking on haylage the last few weeks. Sometimes she gags on it, sometimes she just chokes and other times she does both.

I have had the vet out and she was scoped this morning and we couldnt see any reason as to why she would be choking on it. Her teeth are fine and she can chew properly. Vet is worried that she does this basically everytime she gets haylage and has done it with hard feed once during this time.

Have been adviced that she gets a very wet hard feed which I have been doing anyway and that if she gets haylage she should be given it soaked.

Would I be better soaking the haylage or should I put her on hay and soak that instead? She at present is out 24/7 and occassionally gets haylage when she is brought in to ride if she gets a few hrs inside before returning to the field.
 
I've soaked haylage in the past- for another reason!- i had to soak it to leech the sugar/ a bit of the goodness out of it, this was last year when my supplier temporarily ran out and all i could get was very high grade racehorse stuff!

I say i soaked it- but i actually rinsed the haylage out with the hose before feeding and hanging their nets- it was fine to do and none of the horses seemed bothered by it and it didn't cause them any harm!

It sounds like she is enjoying her haylage a bit too much- is it because she doesn't get the haylage all the time and then takes big mouthfulls of it?-it would be intersting to note if she does the same on soaked hay?- it must be rather worrying when they choke- i bet you've probably tried a tiny holed haynet so they can only get a small amount at a time?....

Good luck though- hope you get it sorted!
 
I hope you don't mind me jumping on this thread but I was wondering how long to soak hayledge for to get rid of any goodness in it? If that's possible? Reason being we have a horse with lammi and only have hayledge with no chance of getting any hay to soak. I have been soaking it for 24 hours but wondering if that is enough or if it makes any difference or not?
 
Thanks for that. I'd never heard of soaking haylage before.

She doesnt look like she being greedy always small mouthfuls and given in small holed nets.
The vet watched her do it last week before he decided to scope her. He didnt think she was being greedy. But I had a different vet today as airways and throats are a speciality of his. So that why we had it done today.

might see if I can get a small bale of hay and try her on that too and see what she does. she had haylage all winter and was fine.
 
oscarwild said:
Thanks for that. I'd never heard of soaking haylage before.

She doesnt look like she being greedy always small mouthfuls and given in small holed nets.
The vet watched her do it last week before he decided to scope her. He didnt think she was being greedy. But I had a different vet today as airways and throats are a speciality of his. So that why we had it done today.

might see if I can get a small bale of hay and try her on that too and see what she does. she had haylage all winter and was fine.
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I'd never soaked haylage before either-i'd no need to, but they were going loopy on the stuff i had, considering they are on good stuff anyway!

Good luck with everything!
 
What colour is your horse? Grey or any diluted colour such as roam, palomino etc? Oesophagael melanoma can cause interference with the nerve supply that controls peristalsis(swallowing mechanism). They often grow between the oesophogas and the vertebrae and cause problem long before they are visible. This would be diagnosed by ultrasound and a needle biopsy. My mare has choke associated with this and is better fed at chest height than ground level. This must be a position that the mass isn't pressing on the nerve and wouldn't necessarily be the same in other cases.
 
cm2581 said:
What colour is your horse? Grey or any diluted colour such as roam, palomino etc? Oesophagael melanoma can cause interference with the nerve supply that controls peristalsis(swallowing mechanism). They often grow between the oesophogas and the vertebrae and cause problem long before they are visible. This would be diagnosed by ultrasound and a needle biopsy. My mare has choke associated with this and is better fed at chest height than ground level. This must be a position that the mass isn't pressing on the nerve and wouldn't necessarily be the same in other cases.
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My mare is chestnut. the one in my sig.


thanks for the link about the soaking haylage. Will give it a bash. We are soaking it to see if she still chokes on it or if the soaked haylage will go down easier.
 
My horse for the last 3 weeks has had about 4/5 episodes of choke when eating his haylage. He is fine out in field and the vet has seen him and suggested that it could be a sore spot in the eosophagus. He had a course of antibotics and danalon and this helped-didn't choke! He came off them on the monday/danlaon Tuesday came in yesterday for saddler choked on his haylage. I am getting vet to scope Monday but she is not hopeful that we will find anything but at least will be able to rule out mass or anything stuck!! He dosen't choke on hard feed or out in field just his haylage and has never had anything like this before!

Did your vet have any ideas??
 
I also soaked haylage for my fatty as I couldn't get hay! I let it soak for about 7/8 hours & then also put it in 2 haylage nets so the holes were tiny xx
 
Soaking hay and haylage for 24 hours will remove sugars, but you need to replace the mins and vits.
You need to keep the intestines in a horse moving, that is why we feed them hay or haylage, personally I would feed from the floor to see if that helps, I realise that he would eat up faster than from a small mesh hay-net, but maybe he could be fed more often.
Allen and Page Fast Fibre is like porridge, almost impossible to choke on I would think.
There is also a ready grass stuff which is only four inches long, more expensive, and some horse don't like it.
Alternatively, if horse is only in a few hours, you could feed Dengie molasses free chaff, which is short chop, I feed it damp. A horse can stand in for two or three hours and will come to no harm if nothing to eat, but I like to take the opportunity to give mins and vits if horse is in work.
 
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does your horse have any nasel discharge,? because that and choking or inability to swallow, dysphagia, can signify gutteral pouch infections which can be life threatening in the extreme and lead to fatal bleeds.

if you are seeing the specialist maybe he can scope the pouches for fungal infections, but i'd certainly ask him about it anyway.
 
tristar said:
does your horse have any nasel discharge,? because that and choking or inability to swallow, dysphagia, can signify gutteral pouch infections which can be life threatening in the extreme and lead to fatal bleeds.

if you are seeing the specialist maybe he can scope the pouches for fungal infections, but i'd certainly ask him about it anyway.
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Gutteral pouch investigations require that the horse is fully sedated, and not a nice procedure, so best to have a full investigation without GP if possible.
 
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