Can feeding haylage cause laminitis

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suzyqet

New Member
Sep 4, 2008
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Hampshire
Ok, here goes.

I have an 11.1 hh Sec A gelding who, touch wood so far, has never had laminitis. (He's 6years old)

The hay we have been getting recently is quite poor, and sometimes the horses eat it, sometimes they dont. (I have 2)

Anyway, I was considering buying large bales of haylage (have done this in the past with different horses). One, as it is more cost effective and two, I know that they will eat it.

However, is it likely to cause laminitis in the Welshie?

Any advice greatly received.

Many thanks.
 
haylage has more water so you need to be feeding more of it than hay, it also has more protein so you need to look at your concentrateand adjust accordingly.

laminitus is caused by many things, namely excess starch which starves the laminae of oxygen. also excess trotting on hard roads, excess weight etc.

as for haylage being the cause i'll let someone else answer that, i did think haylage was higher in sugar and is definately sweeter and goes off after 3 or 4 days?
 
A big bale of haylage will go off too quickly unless you have about 20 Welshies al going at it.
 
I certainly wouldn't feed it without knowing what is in it. In terms of sugars, haylage can be lower in sugar than hay but the problem can be with the acidity. My horse does fine on the high fibre horsehage and I have also used (over a short period) the haylage made at the farm when hay wasn't available and again she was fine. Dodson&Horrell do a forage analysis service which costs only £5 if you get a sample first.
 
Thanks guys.

When I fed it before, I never fed any concentrates and my horses did really well on it. I had a 17hh dwb x id and an Arab yearling.

This time round I still have the dwb x but instead of the arab, a welshie.

When I had the big bales before, they lasted me approx 3 weeks before they started to turn and I was paying £25 for a big bale. So when you consider I didnt pay anything for hard feed and at the time hay was £4.50 per bale I was actually saving quite a bit even with some waste.

They had mineral licks too so were getting all the necessary's that way.

I have just never had a 'small' pony before so I am a little unsure what with laminitis being so talked about now-a-days.
 
I cannot let my Welshie have haylage - and it breaks her little heart:). She goes down like a stone with laminitis if she gets near it.

Similar to you, I have one horse and a couple of little ponies but unfortunately, everyone is going to have to stay on hay this year as the big bale will go off before Arnie can get through it and the wee ones really cannot get near it as it cripples them:(
 
My welshie 11.3 has had it twice from other people putting haylage in the field, nearly lost him 3 times in those two episodes. The people were doing it at 6am for their horses before I got there. Problem being my little guy always stood almost underneath 17h boss mare eating it.

Definately a no no for mine. Only hay and even that is soaked, and I use 5kgs a day of dengie hi fi lite if there is no hay.
 
Robert Eustace recomends no (he was quite insistant about that at the talk i heard him give). I understood it was more acidic than hay, and this upsets the gut balance and can trigger off laminitis. I could never give it to my laminitic mare, even a whiff of it and she was down with laminitis.
 
It's funny, it's all ours get in winter, unless they are working, and they only get haylage when it snows or the grass is running out.

They love our home grown big bale stuff. We used to take Horsehage bags with us on boat and lorry trips, and none of them will touch it, we have tried all the different kinds and it has proved to be a disappointing waste. We now take hay with us, which they will eat.

It does not surprise me that prone horses go down with lami with it.
 
This year we had no choice but to use haylage as it was impossible to make hay with the weather we had. The vet told all the owners of fatties to fed it soaked as the soaking would pull out all the sugar. The fatties all seemed to do well on this.
 
I haven't a welshie but I do have an extremely good doer and a tb x who puts weight on easily! Both are on haylege but its suitable (says so on the bag) for resting pones and laminitics. so if I were you I'd look for suitable stuff, I did have Joe on farmers haylege and he did get low grade lami last year, but it was my own fault for feeding him too much!! Vet didn't seem to think that the haylege I was buying would do any harm - did check.

Edited to add: it was the farmers rich good fruity haylege that brought the lami on - not the bagged stuff I've been buying recently. Sorry if I sounded confusing back there!
 
I think with haylage it's alot to do with how it is made. The stuff my horse is okay on is really quite dry, to the point where if you didn't know any better you'd think it was hay. From past experience, wet stuff gives her the runs and no doubt would upset things if fed for too long so I stay clear of that. I haven't had to feed haylage for more than a few days at a time but normally if something isn't going to work for my horse pulses would be up straight away. I think I would go with hay if at all possible but if haylage is your only option then introduce it slowly and keep a v. close eye on things.
 
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