Okay...I need to know, is there a different between hay and haylage?

Question

The reason I ask is because I answered this question:

Do you feed your horses haylage from a big round bale,if so how much do they eat?
And I didn't think anything about it until I saw Gillian's answer and she said that you need to feed more haylage then hay...

wow...wouldn't it just ferment inside the bale then?

Must go over and fix my answer then...cause I answered wrong...I don't and never have fed haylage then.

Thanks...I didn't realize people did that. I can see where that would be handy for horses with allergies...but does it have to be stored differently then? So the bales don't mold or ferment?

Okay...whew...now that was something nice to learn...here in the midwest...i don't think haylage is very popular...before today...I had never heard of it...Thanks for the education Lisa...I really appreciate it.

Either that or I am further out in the boonies than I realized...lol

Answer 1

The difference is that haylage is baled with a higher moisture content than hay - 50 to 60% vs 18 to 20%. When fed to horses, it should only make up about 30% of a horses forage as opposed to 70% for hay. Therefore it should be fed in smaller quanties than hay. We fed haylage to some racehorses that had dust allergies and all horses got about 3 sections per feed of hay - the haylage horses got about a section of haylage per feed. Haylage dry matter has a higher nutritional value than hay (about 10% higher) so less supplementary feed will be needed if you are feeding the same amount of haylage as what you did hay.

Edit - Because of the high moisture level and air-tight environment, the forage ferments and is preservd by acid production during fermantation. When you open it up, it sometimes has white stuff on it and that's yeast which is ok to feed if it's creamy looking. It's mold if it's powdery so the integrity of the wrap has been broken and it can't be fed to horses, ok for cattle though. It's heavier too than hay because of the moisture so you feed by weight, not volume.

Edit - When you buy it, make sure there are no breeches in the wrap at all and when you transport it and store it, just be very careful not to snag or rip the plastic until ready to use it. It has a sweet, vinegar smell when you open it which is normal, just check for mold and start feeding it in small amounts to start with. Horses love it.

Edit - In England, there are big companies that manufacture it, HorseHage and Propak and it's been popular for years. Then farmers like my cousin got into doing it themselves and horse people will pay more than cattle farmers so it's profitable for them. I think it's not so widely used over here and some people confuse it with Silage which shouldn't be fed to horses because that's really high in nitrates and can also contain botulisim. It's 2 different things, 2 different processes and people get confused so they stay away from haylage. Good quality haylage is great and even really picky horses will eat that. We had horses from Argentina that hated English hay (we rarely get alfalfa there and that's what they were used to) but they loved haylage.

Answer 2

Where I am in the UK, we feed hayledge in place of hay.
It has a higher feed content than hay and the horses keep better on it.

The stuff we use is much drier, about 70 - 80% than has been mentioned before and it is all we feed as the fiber content is high. We call the wetter stuff "silage" (there is confusion here because there is also a short chop very wet feed fed only to cattle - which is what Lisa is referring to) to and it must be fed and stored carefully, if the wrap become compromised, botulism can form. I would only feed the wetter stuff if that was all I could buy, it is more suitable for cattle than horses and can cause colic in some horses - and laminitis because it is very rich.
The stuff I feed doesn't have the smell lisa describes either, it just smells like sweet hay, they can eat as much of it as they want.

My horses also get two grain feeds per day too because they are young or in-foal but a riding pony wouldn't need anything more than a mineral and vitamin balancer - many don't even get that.

One large bale lasts mine roughly one week - three horses and one foal.

My colt is kept elsewhere.

I have been feeding it for more than 11 years now and wouldn't go back to hay unless I was forced to.

Answer 3

Debi is nice, silage and haylage at the prompt are not a similar. It has to do with dry count number number content textile. If it has a dry count number number content textile over 60%, then it really is refered to as haylage and haylage has a lot less sugars, a lot less water and a lot less lactic acid content textile than silage. dealt with hay it extremely is for sale including HorseHage and Propak are haylage that has undergone further dirt extraction and has been dealt with to sidestep botulism. Botulism can present a huge danger to horses that are fed silage. maximum horses look to choose haylage over hay and also you feed a lot a lot less of it. in case you feed 3 sections of hay, they could in difficulty-free words choose about a million of haylage in it really is position. So regardless of the actual undeniable reality that the pony loves it, they get fed a lot less of it and it would not very last them lengthy so in case your horse is stabled all day, feeding a better volume of hay might want to probable be better and may want to also decrease your danger of colic and ulcers. notwithstanding, in case your horse suffers from COPD, for the sake of his respiratory, you would do better with haylage at the same time as all issues are considered.

Answer 4

haylage is baled at high moisture and then sealed up tight. Hay is just regular hay

Answer 5

Good question, I didn't know either! Us midwesterners learned something today.
Enjoyed reading your answer, Lisa M.

Answer 6

eh, good question, I learned something too.

Great answer Lisa!

Answer 7

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/onslow/AG/hay/haylage.html