It may be 50% cheaper but you are paying for a lot of moisture, so you will need to feed more to provide the same amount of fiber as dry hay.
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I have watched about 100 hours of youtube videos, and read through operating instructions for wrapping and baling hay, and I cannot for the life of me find any information about bailing wrapped hay for horses vs cows, it seems that the number 1 concern is about making sure the plastic remains intact, and then making sure hay is free from mold.
I have found 3 people that I know and trust in real life that have feed silage in the past, one in Colorado, one in Minnesota, and another in Sonoma area of CA. all of who reported feeding silage hay to horses with very little issues, then only with specific horses. ie one horses hocks swelled up, and some horses just dont do well with the calories, similar to what you would run into with straight alfalfa
one of the big issues I have found in researching this is there are several terms that are often used interchangeably, but can mean different things, silage, haylage and wrapped bales. Just to be clear what I am feeding are bales that are cut, baled and wrapped at 43% moisture content then let sit for a minimum of 30 days
Just fyi my cost estimations come out to about $125 a ton for wrapped bales and my cost for hauled in alfalfa is about $350. so it is a pretty significant savings. The fact that I have met 5 people that have fed this hay successfully, 2 of whom feed the exact hay that I am purchasing are grounds enough for me to try it. So far I am 2 weeks and have not noticed any adverse effects. I will keep you posted if I run into anything unusual.
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It will be about the content and that also will depend on the type of cows. Dairy cows will get pretty much 100% alfalfa. (in my area, anyway)
Ensiling it, making sileage out of slightly wilted forage, (whether in bales called “baleage” or chopped and bagged as “haylage”) is going to be the same - dried to the correct moisture content, sprayed with innoculant, packed in plastic and sealed up as tight as possible to keep the environment as close to anaerobic as possible. Note, I’m not sure whether baleage actually gets innoculated - I’ve only worked with haylage and corn silage going into giant bags or, in the case of corn sileage, going into silos.
