My girls run on 9.5 acres and do not seem interested in haylage. They have a good hard feed twice per day with at least half a bucket of Alpha-A Lite and sugar beet(unmolassed). Do you think that all the grass is enough. Milly who is 28 seems to be only interested in the grass and Anna who is a mere 19 would eat it any way as she is greedy. They are both lokking great at the moment. 4 acres has not been used since the summer until now.
At the moment the grass is fine as it will have been growing slightly. It won't have a lot of goodness, just belly fill, but as you are feeding twice a day that won't matter. The only addition I would give is a good quality vitamin and mineral supplement in their feed.
Our old mare (We lost her at 26 to a tumour) would always start refusing to eat hay around this time of year - only wanted grass, and she'd lose condition until it came through. She was also on hard feed twice a day and a mineral lick - I think she just got fed up with hay. All the time they are looking great then I shouldn't worry.
Zahkira (GR Amaretto x Taffetta) Linda East Sussex
Mine have been leaving the hay i put out for them so I stopped putting it out. They are on 2 feeds a day, Spillers high fibre nuts, spillers happy hoof and Speedibeet. The grass is so lush and there is plenty of it. Its only this week they have had a bit of hay becuase the grass was frozen but still they left some of that and its top quality meadow hay that smells really sweet so its not rammy old hay they are leaving.
I say if you are feeding twice a day and they are eating grass then leave them to it, they obviously prefer the grass to the hay.
All I can say is isn't it great to have grass this time of year, last year we had weeks of frost and snow in December then no grass until spring because it had all died back from the frost.
winter grass
Posted - 15 Jan 2012 : 08:43:59 AM
Zahkira (GR Amaretto x Taffetta)
