HaySoft Original (Pink) For Horse and Ponies

HaySoft Original Haylage – Pink

HaySoft Original is the pink-bagged haylage, and the product the Essex family farm behind HaySoft started with. They make it from premium cut rye grass, pack it tightly once the moisture content has reached 30–35%, and let it ferment mildly in the bag. That is what produces a moist, dust-free forage that needs no soaking before it goes in a net.

The pink bag is packed as one large single section rather than several smaller ones. Haysoft's stated reason is economy for the customer, and in practice it means less packaging per kilo and a bag that is opened once rather than picked at. Haysoft place it with a wide range of horses and ponies, particularly those in light to medium work. Beyond that they publish no analysis at all, and this page does not invent one.

Performance & Benefits

• Premium cut rye grass, mildly fermented in the bag to preserve nutrients rather than dry them out.
• Packed at 30–35% moisture, which is Haysoft's own figure and the reason it does not need soaking.
• Dust-free, which is the whole argument for it over dry hay in a shut-up stable.
• One large single section per bag, which Haysoft say is the more economical format for customers.
• Grown and baled on the family's own farm and neighbouring farms in Essex.
• Pink bag — Haysoft's colour coding for the Original within their range.

Suitable For

• Horses and ponies in light to medium work, which is where Haysoft themselves place it.
• Stabled horses where dust and respiratory irritation are the problem.
• Owners who want to stop soaking or steaming hay every day.
• Small numbers of horses, where a sealed single-section bag is more practical than a big bale.
• Not the right choice where a diet has to be built on known sugar and starch figures — Haysoft publish none for it, and the green-bagged High Fibre is no better in that respect.

Feeding

• Feed as part or all of the forage ration, in a net, a rack or off a clean floor.
• Weigh it rather than judging by eye. Haylage holds far more water than hay, so a given weight is less dry forage than it looks.
• Bring a horse onto it over a week or more, replacing hay gradually rather than all at once.
• Use an opened bag within a few days and keep it out of the sun while it is open.
• Haysoft publish no daily feeding rate for the Original, so feed to bodyweight, workload and condition.

Composition & Analysis

• Composition: premium cut rye grass, mildly fermented. Nothing added.
• Moisture content 30–35% at packing. That is the only quantitative figure Haysoft publish for this product.
• No protein, fibre, sugar, starch, energy or dry matter percentage is published by Haysoft, so none is stated here.
• Packed as one large single section per bag.
• Haysoft also make a High Fibre haylage in a green bag and a Timothy haylage.

Care & Caution

• Open a bag and look at it before it goes anywhere near a horse. Mould, a slimy surface or a sour smell means that bag is finished with.
• Do not feed from a bag that has been punctured or lost its seal in storage. Once air is in, the forage spoils.
• Opened haylage keeps a few days at most in warm weather, and less in a hot stable.
• With no published sugar or starch analysis, this is not a forage to put a laminitic or an insulin-dysregulated pony on without having a sample tested first.