Food For Thought Horse Series-Haylage/Baleage & Fermented Grasses: Understanding Fermented Forage:
- naturalhorse1
- Mar 14
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 18
HAYLAGE: So here is my take on haylage/baleage, and other fermented grasses:
Haylage is an interesting one because it isn’t really forage in the traditional sense. It has already been fermented in the bale, so some of the fibre fermentation that would normally happen in the horse’s hindgut has effectively already taken place. Horses are hindgut fermenters and are designed to extract energy from fibre through that process themselves, which is why we generally recommend grass and hay as the foundation of a forage-first approach.
Another consideration is that horses don’t naturally eat fermented grass. When forage is chopped, compacted and wrapped like this it removes many of the ways horses normally assess what they are eating. Horses use far more than just their prehensile lips. They use smell, touch, texture and the feel of different plants to sort through forage. When it’s wet, fermented and compacted together those cues are largely lost, which can make it harder for them to separate out plants they would normally avoid, and there have been cases where horses have accidentally consumed toxic plants in haylage for that reason.
Another concern is moulds. Because haylage is wrapped and stored in an anaerobic environment, if the fermentation process doesn’t go exactly right or if the wrap is damaged, moulds and undesirable microbes can develop. Horses are very sensitive to moulds and mycotoxins, and these can affect the gut, respiratory system, and overall health.
For those reasons we prefer to focus on grass and well made hay as the foundation of a forage first diet wherever possible.
If you would like to understand horse feeds in more detail and talk through which approach may be better suited to your horse, I offer Feed & Forage Guidance Consultations here: https://www.naturalhorse.co.nz/product-page/natural-horse-feed-forage-consultation
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