WHY is my horse squitty on haylage???

[soloequestrian]

I have a lovely supply of haylage - looks great, smells great, horses love it. Two eat it with no issues at all. One gets diarrhoea. She doesn't lose condition, she loves eating the haylage, but she is farty and squitty and has nasty stuff running down her back legs. As soon as she goes onto grass she dries up completely.
I have tried live yoghurt, live yeast, NAF Haylage Balance, giving them some soaked hay (they ate very little of it), giving them straw with the haylage (they do eat some of it), and most recently changing haylage supplier which seems to have had a small effect, but not cleared the problem up completely.
I really don't want to feed hay - difficult to get decent stuff, difficult to store, would have to be soaked because one of them has RAO and soaking is hell when the temperature drops plus the horses don't really like it.
I would love to know WHY she is reacting to haylage like this - I feel I might be able to do something about it if I knew - at the moment it's just driving me nuts. I've been fighting this problem for several years now - she used to be fine on haylage (from the same supplier). I have asked him about it, but he wasn't forthcoming about anything that might have changed.
Help!!

 

[Fantasy_World]

Could it be just that the haylage is too rich for her? I have a youngster who is the same, rest are fine but he squits so is back on hay with a little bit of haylage added at times.
Are there any other hay replacers that this mare could have instead and continue with the haylage for the other two?
Other than that it would be the case of feeding hay I would imagine and soaking it, she would eat it if she was hungry enough believe me.

 

[Goldenstar]

some horses do this on haylage mine where better on the NAF haylage balancer shame it did not help yours. I would try adding lots of dry bulk to her bucket feeds (I use HiFI lite ) and see if that helps.

 

[soloequestrian]

Thanks for these replies, but it's more the WHY that I'm interested in. I can't understand why she can eat any quality of grass, including high-sugar spring stuff, but can't cope with haylage.

 

[tallyho!]

Haylage has a high water content and a high pH level. Haylage balancer reduces this pH level so thats why it works most of the time.

Grass is consumed in small amounts bit by bit and chewed well whereas haylage is long stranded and stemmy and may not be chewed as well as grass/hay because it's moist.

Only guessing here, but maybe she isn't digesting haylage as well as she could. Some horses don't which is why yards should offer a choice of forage. Haylage was made for cows who can ruminate where horses can't so rely on a good digestive system instead. Lots of horses do well, there's just always some that don't or develop issues. I would switch to hay for her - probably order HorseHage if you can't guarantee local quality.

You know, haylage & hay can come from the same field so if your hay is poor quality, your haylage could be too... here, haylage is cut from spring grass and hay baled from the summer growth. Some people do half and half.