Who feeds hay, and who feeds haylage?

The horses have haylage, it is better for their respiratory systems and having too many to soak hay for, ponies have hay soaked if required to reduce sugars.
 
Hay as we make it and found haylege hard to manage when we made that.. Some have steamed some have soaked (our yard is 10 all under 14hh)
 
I would only feed the best hay (even if I had to buy the Canadian stuff) .I have seen too many horses have problems on haylge. I will however accept that if you have a horse whose lungs have been completely shot (by a previous owner I am sure) the haylage may save the poor chap and give him /her ,some quality of life. So ,in its place it is good ,but it does have problemstoo.
 
We used to feed small bale hay but were finding it difficult to get good quality so changed to big bale haylage, which we have used for about 4 yrs .
During that time I bought a Draft horse, who showed symptoms of gastric ulders and also had pastern dermatitis, which primarily seems to be caused by sweating under her feather. Recently she showed signs of small sores round her mouth. One of the other horses was quite wheezy in the stable.
We changed to big bale hay just before Christmas. The wheezy horse stopped wheezing and the Draft horse is more comfortable in general. Her sore patches and pastern scabs are clearing up.
 
Mostly haylage as its part of livery. There isn't an optio. For hay. However I do buy some and mate has 2/3 haylage 1/3 hay. She's a rather round welsh cob.

Hope she will loose weight now I'm feeling better and can ride her
 
Hay for both of mine, one has it soaked what ever the quality as he has C.O.P.D,
Did try steaming it but found it didn't work too well and the vet told me it's better to soak it completely under water for half hour before giving and feed it on the floor to stop it drying out. so that's what i do and seems to work well.
wouldn't dream of giving my mare haylage, she's a hardy cob so she'd pile on the weight and also it a probably send her completely crazy! I'll stick with the hay :wink3:
 
Haylage. Have fed Haylage for nearly 20 yrs now, ever since my last horse developed a cough on hay. At that time we could only buy Horsehage, in fact , prior to that I don't remember Haylage existing! Would never go back to hay now, Haylage is much more convenient, easier to store, less waste and healthier for the horses.
 
Haylage as I'm highly allergic to hay and all the dust it entails. Costs me more money as only small baled stuff available at my yard but worth it if I'm able to breathe! I did try long sleeves and a face mask for a bit but still made my eyes itch. Will switch back to hay in summer when I'm only doing the odd net for him to munch when stood about cos of it lasting longer (plus if I'm only having to fill the net once a week or so I'm ok)
 
I feed both to mine a net of eaach, I like small bale haylage but when you get good quality sweet hay you can't beat it for natives
 
I feed hay because haylage is too rich for my horses. Mine is always fat and my daughters needs no extra energy, the other is a Shetland!
I soak it first as one will cough on dry hay.
I also worry about using wrapped bales fast enough before they start to turn so it's hay all the way for me.
 
Hay - because we get it at a discount for taking it straight off the field next door, and the farmer's barn is literally round the corner from the field so it's eady and cheap to get hold of more when we run out. I feel easier about feeding it ad-lib as I've always found mine tend to scoff more haylage than hay! I can't soak hay though so if I find problems with using hay, I have to switch to small bale haylage which is just so expensive.
 
I only feed big bale haylage - thankfully I have a good supplier. Have never had a problem feeding it (and at present I have 83 horses from weanlings to geriatrics scoffing it!) Viurtually all my horses are good doers - and we feed very low amounts of concentrates only to the ones in work, and mares coming up to foaling.
 
I've been feeding haylage this Winter, last Winter I mixed it up a bit between hay and haylage. I'm going to be putting him back on hay as of next month as small bags of haylage is costing me a fortune and I don't know how quickly our grazing is going to recover this year so could be supplementing it with forage for longer than I'd planned and therefore need to save where I can. He's a native and it won't hurt for him to shed a few pounds before Spring so it'll be a win win really although he is incredibly fussy but I suppose if he's hungry enough he'll eat it! Hopefully I can find something nice quality and not too coarse.
 
Both. Haylage out as much less waste (wind was spreading the hay across the field and thye tend to be more likely to leave hay) and can store the bale out. I will ocassionally mix it with hay. Hay in the stable as dont want them on 100% haylage (smaller horse has poorer quality hay so she eats it slower - i cant split them at the minute so no option other than for her to share the haylage with the other two). Currently on big bales of both as we ran out of our own small hay bales. The haylage we have is very dry and good quality and doesnt seem to drive the potty like some haylage can.
 
I feed both. My veteran has ad-lib haylage for condition and weight maintenance, my other horse has hay cos she doesn't need any extra weight.
 
Haylage. I make my own small bale, it's cut late and dried a bit more than is usual so it keeps better when opened and I think, probably is a bit lower in sugars. I used to make hay but noticed one horse got a bit snotty by the end of the winter despite soaking it. Since feeding haylage I haven't had a horse which coughs or shows any signs of a respiratory problem. It's easy to store, keeps well and the horses love it. yes it's more expensive to make but I sell my surplus and generally cover my costs.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top