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I often get asked "What do you feed Bailey?" and "Do you have a preference between hay and haylage?". The answer is, I feed both.
 
I feed Bailey 50/50 hay and haylage through the summer and then come winter I increase the proportion of haylage. The rest of the gang are little porkies so they only have hay, or very limited amounts of haylage in the winter.
 
Hay is great for my porkies as I can soak it when they get a bit tubby, but I make sure I also have some available for Bailey as he loves fresh hay. We get our hay very locally so I know what field it has been produced from and it's available to us all year round.
 
However, I do still need to think about Bailey's weight. He loves to drop weight overnight if I don't keep on top of it and ensure I'm feeding him correctly. There's only so much hard feed a horse can intake, so we've always used MainBale Haylage. The only time in his life that he hasn't been fed this is when he was lucky enough to have a 5 acre field with great soil all to himself, so he didn't require any hay or haylage to keep his weight up. Sadly we moved away from that area and as a result had to go back to feeding haylage. Although I wasn't able to go directly to MainBale Farm to purchase it, I was lucky enough to find that my local feed stores stocked it! Like my hay, the haylage is also produced locally.
 
Why do I feed haylage to Bailey? Not only is it dust-free, which helps with his respiratory system, but it is more palatable and digestable than hay, plus it contains more nutritional value, which is always a benefit.
 
I will say, if money was no object, I would happily move fully onto haylage. Without a haybarn, it's much easier to store as it's already wrapped, and a lot easier to handle than big hay bales! Just like bag formed bedding over straw.
 
Have you ever thought about feeding haylage with, or instead of hay? Or even just looked into the benefits of haylage? You can find out more information though the links below.
 
 
Discover the benefits of haylage on MainBale's site > http://www.mainbale.co.uk/mainbale_website_005.htm
 
Buy MainBale Haylage online > https://www.jrt-feedsandcountrystore.co.uk/
 
Find a MainBale Haylage Stockist near you > https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=12Mbi5WPIXhKqIqYLB_YtXZY83yk&ll=51.27372635370648%2C-0.05746750000002976&z=9

Rachael Skinner - Eventful Eventing
Horsemart Brand Ambassador
Published on 26-11-2019
Rachael is an amateur Event rider from Kent and Bailey is a 7 year old 17hh gelding, and together they go by the name of Eventful Eventing. Rachael says "I may not be at the top of the game, doing 4 star Eventing, but I am a realist. I like to include the lows as well as the highs in training and competing, and general yard to yard activities. Although our main aim is within Eventing, I like to dabble in other disciplines too."