Haylege

[Sharonbc]

Talk to me about haylage and horses. Not silage. Sweet smelling hay marshmallows.

[Tarlo Farm]

Around here, haylage is only for cows. It's cut, not dried, hay piled either in cement structures or blown into the plastic "worms". Smells great for the first week or so, then starts to smell sour as it molds.

[silk]

What Tarlo describes sounds like silage, which is usually a no-no for horses, I believe due to the innoculant used.
Haylage is a common horse feed here. The major problem is ensuring you don't get holes in the wraps, and that you can use it up before it goes off. Horses love it, and will choose it over hay. I don't use it because I only have two easy-keeper horses and no machinery to move the wraps around (they are a lot heavier than hay bales of similar dimensions), but they have eaten it in the past when dad made baleage for the cows. No ill effects (he used to feed the horses when he had to walk through their paddock with the cows' feed).

[Hoof'n it]

From memory silage is bales/stored at just over 60% moisture, Balage is baled at 50% moisture and hay is less than 40% moisture. So silage is cut and only dried for a few hours, Balage is left for 24 hours and hay for a few days before baling,

Silage is generally made into "stacks", so put in a 'bunker' of sorts and plastic wrap over the top, here they are held down my old tyres. For ease of feeding out in large amounts required by dairy farmers.
Balage is made into bales and then wrapped in plastic. Bales can be an assortment of sizes, from 25kg through to 700kg sized bales.

I used to feed a lot of it, as the horses would maintain a better body weight through a dry summer or wet winter with the Haylage over hay. Less energy used to eat a digest it, as it's not dry. But on the other side it has a lot more sugar in it.
I stopped feeding it to the broodmares and youngsters, as I had massive issues with OCDs while I was feeding it. I don't know if it was the Balage the hard feed or the property, as I changed all three and have since has sound youngsters...

I know a lot of studs feed Balage and don't have any issues, so my OCD issues could have been another factor of the 3 I said above....

I have just recently brought in Balage for the first time in years, I will be not only feeding it to the cows, but also the non breeding stock or youngsters. The broodies and youngsters will still be fed hay.

The other down size of Balage is that if you open a bale in winter it needs to be fed within 7 days before it starts to spoil, in the summer it's a lot less time, so maybe a few days. This also means that you have to be vigilant in checking the bales which you store, as any small (even pin prick) holes can cause a bale to spoil if left long enough.

Balage/Haylage = the same thing.

[Tarlo Farm]

Funny. Here, silage is chopped corn. Otherwise, all the same; green, bulk, spoils, only for cows.

[Hoof'n it]

Silage can either be maize or grass...
Really depends on what crop the farmer planted or didn't plant that season.

[AmityBee]

Feeding haylage during the winter months is a pretty common practice around here. Easier to produce than hay, easier to store and cheaper than hay. Good haylage should look and feel almost like hay.

Silage can be corn but then it's called corn silage. Around here corn silage is used for cattle and biogas plants.

Grass silage is usually the first cut and balled at around 65% moisture. (Hay is stable at about 15% moisture.) Haylage is usually the second cut grass dried to about 40% to 50% moisture and then balled.

Personally, I do not like it and will not feed it if I can help it. In the past I have chosen barns specifically because they offer hay all year round. I just don't think horses guts are made for fermented roughage, I don't like the lower pH and higher bacteria count.

On the other hand, many horses love good haylage and prefer it to hay.

[kande50]

Talk to me about haylage and horses. Not silage. Sweet smelling hay marshmallows.

I think the risk of botulism is much higher with haylage. No one that I know of feeds it to horses around here, although years ago a local breeder lost half her herd to botulism, and the story was that she was feeding haylage.

[Red Barn]

It's not fed to horses here in New England either, and botulism is the reason given.

[kande50]

It's not fed to horses here in New England either, and botulism is the reason given.

I have a feeling that the conditions here (western MA) just aren't right for putting up safe haylage for horses?

The woman who lost half her herd to botulism was new to the area, and may have come from an area where haylage is commonly fed to horses so didn't realize that it isn't here?

[Red Barn]

That's certainly possible.

I'm in western Maine, and I've never seen it fed anywhere but dairy farms.

I once visited an organic dairy farm where they mixed up a concoction of chopped haylege, molasses, cracked corn, and rolled oats, and I swear it smelled so incredibly delicious I could easily have eaten it myself. Wowser!

[Hoof'n it]

Botulism is definitely a risk, but I think the areas where is it cut and how clean the grass is really decides how much risk it poses.

It can come from the soil, a dead animal or even too much moisture in the bale.
If it's in the soil, then the risk is much greater, especially if the contractor mows to close or racks to close to the ground to pick up the soil.
The dead animal is just the luck of the draw, unless it's highly populated with rodents of some kind.
The moisture content is completely on the contractor.

If botulism is a high risk then I can see why some horse owners in some areas don't feed it.