Too much haylage?!

S

SarahP

New Member
Jun 3, 2021
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A few months ago I did a favour for a friend and did her horse for her in the morning whilst doing my own. She wasn’t specific about how much haylage I need to put in for her horse and she has a big almost bath tub bucket in the stable for it so I just filled it up thinking that
would be helpful. I think I put in about 4 maybe 5 slices. She then called me and was really rude saying there was no way that was okay as it was far too much and what was I thinking. The horse is kept in and stabled throughout the day and I just thought that it was better to give her more rather than less. Am I in the wrong? It’s been playing on my mind massively and she was so aggressive and rude about it but I was just trying to be helpful and didn’t think it would be a big deal as surely the horse would eat as much as she needee. Advice?!
 
She has no right being rude when she should have told you how much to put in, that was her oversight. She should have said how much to put in, or better yet why didn't she leave the stable and haylage ready so all you had to do was put her horse in?

That said 4 or 5 slices of haylage is rather a lot unless you're looking at a big horse who needs to gain weight or unless they're very thin slices off a conventional hay bale size bale. If the horse is standing in to lose weight then it's too much - but again not your problem if you weren't told otherwise.

Lesson learnt, don't do her any more favours, and hopefully she'll have learnt to bee more specific, leave things ready for people and not be rude.
 
Ditto Carthorse.

If she asks again for you to do her horse, I'd make sure I said no.
 
You were doing her a favour. She didn’t tell you how much to give. She was then very rude. You won’t be doing her a favour in future!
 
First her rudeness was, indeed, unacceptable.

Second if the horse has metabolic issues, often their insulin is so high, they continually think they are hungry, won’t stop eating, therefore hay has to be carefully weighed for each feeding so they don’t end up foundering.

I know this because I have one of those horses. He has been in insulin resistance remission since 2015 and now self-regulates like he should, but when he foundered in 2012, his insulin level was so high the university who did his blood work marveled he was still alive. That means he would have flipped the aisle mats over looking for morsels of hay if he could - actually he did send his hay tub to the back of the stall once or twice:)

That said, the owner should have been very specific as to the amount of haylage you were to feed the horse and WHY.

The owner is not blameless as, in this instance, it seems as if the horse may have needed a defined amount of hay for a medical reason. Being rude to you was rude on her part — if she puts someone in that position again, she needs to be specific about the amount of hay the horse should have.

If you ever find yourself in this position again, ask the owner to be specific as to how much haylage the horse needs for that feeding:)
 
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