Feeding haylage to a good doer?

MaisieMoo

MaisieMoo

Well-Known Member
Oct 19, 2007
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Our local farmer who provides hay to our yard is struggling with hay supplies (as is every other farmer in the area) due to the horrible weather last year.

So our latest delivery is 2 bales of haylage.

C doesn't get fizzy on haylage but he is a very good doer - so much so that I tend to try and wet his hay to prevent him eating it too quickly or putting weight on.

I'm going to try and find a hay supplier but if that fails would soaking the haylage overnight remove enough of the nutrients to allow me to feed it to him with out worrying about weight gain? They are about to move into their summer field which has loads of grass (need to dig out the muzzle) so he'll be cut down to 1 net a day as he's barely finishing the 2 nets he gets now.

Welcome any thoughts.:)
 
Thanks all - C's never had lami but is a very chunky cob with a large crest so I'd like to mitigate the risk of him contracting it.

I just wasn't sure how much more sugars were in haylage vs. hay and how much soaking it would remove.
 
A significant amount of sugar is removed when hay is soaked for 20-30 mins (steaming loses less nutrients and just helps to minimise dust spores) so I would recommend doing that. :)

x
 
I can sympathise! I have a rather chunky mare who puts on weight as soon as she looks at anything remotely like food!

I have had her on hay all winter which has been fed in a controlled manner, and she has never looked better! However, now I have moved her back down to home away from college, all I have access to is haylage as everyone else has it.

I feed her as little as possible to prevent her gaining weight, and I do her a net (I use haylage nets anyway as she always wolfs her food!) and then put it inside another net (one full one inside one empty one). Then the holes are effectively even smaller and she takes even longer to munch her way through it.

Hope that helps! :D
 
I get around this problem by muzzling whenever out on grass. It means I can feed haylage ad-lib (which actually isn't that much once the grass does kick in) from about now through until we get next years hay crop in without any weight gain.

My mare has metabolic issues and what she eats does have to be monitored. For ease I get Equilage or Marksway haylage as I know it's regulated and can check the energy and sugar levels easily, which is difficult to do with unbranded haylage. It's expensive but I only get through a bag or two a week so it's not too bad.
 
Duke our cushings pony was fed haylage we soaked it and then double netted it to make it more difficult for him to gorge himself and he was fine on it.
 
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