German agricultural contractor and bale silage producer, Peter Imholze, talks about the advantages of feeding bale silage to horses
Germans love horses. The horse population in Germany is estimated at one million, a number has tripled over the last 35 years. Thanks to the animals' great recreational value, more and more people opt for horses. Horse owners often disagree about whether hay or grass silages are better suited as raw forage for their animals.
Peter Imholze lives in Schwaförden in the Lower Saxony, Germany, and co-owns the agricultural service company Imholze together with his brother Rolf. Among other things, they produce bale silages for feeding horses. This company was founded by their grandfather and has been family-owned for 60 years. The brothers employ 4 full-time staff members and several temporal personnel. They offer a broad range of agricultural services that, other than the production of bale silages, also comprise soil cultivation, corn sowings and maintenance, rapeseed and corn harvest. Starting this year, the company offers large square bales in addition to the traditional round bales. The family also runs an agricultural farm with pig fattening. Both brothers completed their agricultural training and Peter Imholze has additionally obtained his agricultural engineering degree as agronomist from the agricultural college.
The bale silage that the Imholze family produces for horses have turned out to be a practical alternative to other forage types such as clamp and hay. "Contrary to hay, bale silage is not dry and therefore doesn't raise dust. Many horse owners soak hay in water before feeding it in order to avoid the risk of dust allergies. Thanks to high-quality bale silages, it is possible to significantly reduce respiratory tract diseases in horses that suffer from chronic coughing", explains Peter Imholze. "Additionally, hay harvest is more commonly affected by weather risks while also being more labour intensive. Hay should also be stored in dry places. This is however not the case for bale silages. This makes storage much easier for livestock owners," Imholze continues.
Easy portioning of food
A great advantage of bale silage for horse feeding is the fact that it can be portioned easily. "Many of our clients are companies and horse owners that own between two and five horses. Bale silage is very well suited for that since the individual portions are used up quickly and therefore less food goes to waste. Even for our clients that own up to 30 horses bale silage is a cheap and efficient feeding alternative," Imholze explains.
Peter Imholze adds that the risk of reheating is much lower for bale silage than for clamp. The reheating of ensiled food does not only engender great losses with regard to energy and taste, but it additionally facilitates the formation of mildew that endangers animal health.
Finally, many horse owners dispose of only relatively small open grass areas, making the silage production using clamps an impractical alternative due to the small amounts of available grass.
Cutting time and number of film layers
The horse's digestive tract requires more wood-like grasses, and thus structure-rich food, than other animals. Imholze therefore only makes the first grass cut for the horse bale silages when already executing the second cut for cow bale silages.
With regard to the number of film layers, Peter Imholze recommends using six - or even better - eight layers in order to help ensure the airtight bale coil required for high-quality silage. Especially because the horse silage requires more wood-like stems than silage for other animals, more layers should be used to reduce any harm to the films. The films must additionally be tear proof and UV resistant. Various shades of dark-green have become the signature film appearance of the Imholze clients. Those are least noticeable and integrate well into their environment.
Proper bale storage
Peter Imholze recommends the following with regard to proper bale storage: "You should absolutely store the bales on their front-end side. This makes them more stable since they become less deformed." Imholze also emphasises that the bales should be kept individually, not densely packed. No pressure points or mildew can form and no gas exchange can take place that way. 'We also recommend that you only coil the bales at the storage site in order to eliminate the risk of damages due to the necessary transport. Using additional film layers can then avoid any damage to the bales."
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