Farm Talk: Hay Feeders

Hi, Friends! I've been traveling all last week for work and haven't yet gotten to play with or even open the boxes containing many of my new fun toys, so I'll save that post for another tackho-ing day. Getting the stomach death flu over the weekend did not help. AT. ALL.

Inspired by instagram, let's talk about hay feeding!

Dis is how I feed my hay.

I had lots of opinions on hay feeding when we bought the farm. I spent the year before moving at a large boarding barn (which I really liked otherwise) who did several things that drove me utterly insane; one was not feeding enough hay, and not only did they never feed enough, but they also fed it in a very stupid way. I understand at a commercial barn that the staff may not have time for hay nets or other things, but most of my horse's stall hay ended up in the middle, or in the doorway of their stall. When you own a stallwalker like Bailey, this means that she'd waste a portion of her meager hay ration stall walking it into her bedding. Foxie had similar problems, because she would only eat "clean" hay, and hay that was walked on to enter the stall was "dirty". The outside hay was thrown in piles on the ground, and it drove me nuts to see it pooped on, walked into the mud or otherwise wasted.

So, opinions in hand, I outfitted the farm with two items off the bat; full bale slow feed nets (in troughs) and hay hoops. Both are still in use, though I've evolved the outside hay feeders over time.

Summer Arya modelling a hay hoop. 

The hay hoops are in the stalls; they're easy enough to open, fill and close/latch and have 100% prevented hay being stall walked into bedding or wasted because it was peed or pooped on. We only have one that has been damaged, and I am 99% sure that the horse in question (Ginny) kicked her hay hoop in the progress of kicking the walls and got caught up in it, resulting in one of the loops that hold the hay net to be broken, and a hole to appear in the net. As she's leaving, I'll probably replace it and call it a day. I did experiment with softer hay nets, but replaced them with the poly nets with smaller holes they came with after Arya arrived and showed off her amazing skills at throwing hay. With the original net on her hoop, Arya doesn't waste hardly any hay. The only caution I would give someone is that if, like me, you have some hay that breaks, or leafy alfalfa, there will be some leavings on the ground around and under the hay hoop. I bought, say, 70 bales of leafy grass hay that seems to shatter into 2" pieces in the process of the horses eating it from the nets, and this leaves a decent amount of said 2" pieces of hay around. I pick this up and feed it outside of a net outside about once a week to try and battle my compulsion to pile it up in the stalls like the horses will eat it in there (they don't).

Outside feeder wise, I started with some Tough-1 bale nets and some Rubbermaid 110 gallon (I think) water troughs. Arya and her hay throwing talents inspired me to replace my nets, and I did. I purchased some locally made Hay Chix hay nets (link will get you 20% off, and gives me credit for referring you, full disclosure).

These nets aren't as spacious and easy to load as the tough one nets (which could easily hold 2 bales), they are better materials and cut the waste substantially compared to feeding naked bales in the troughs. Hay always ends up getting flipped out and wasted when I don't use the nets, so I have resolved to use them 100% of the time now. When we got the nicer nets, Arya moved from throwing hay (because she #partieshard when eating, or something) to throwing  the hay nets when they got towards empty.

A few instances of finding hay nets tossed out in the rain with 3 flakes left in them and other similar crabby faced moments lead me to have my husband install some hook eyes for me; the first two troughs we had we drilled holes into the bottom for the hook eyes, one on each side. I used heavy duty carabiners at first, but discovered that they can be bounced open when the nets are vigorously shook, so I have moved to real climbing type beaners or other hooks that screw closed. This has completely eradicated the hay net throwing problem.

We got more nets and troughs once the fighting began to try to keep the horses fed and separated from each other so they wouldn't fight. These troughs I had Hubby put holes in about 3/4 of the way up in the sides, as my bales are big and it's hard to re-snap them in to the troughs with the hooks under the hay. This definitely makes the work easier for filling, but Arya  not to be outdone, found the weakness in this: the higher connection makes the troughs easier to flip or tip over, and she does this from time to time when they get empty. We plan to battle this by weighting the troughs and I think we'll finally have out-thought the baby thoroughbred.

So that's how I do hay daily: I'd suggest buying the climbing type carabiners (amazon has a lovely variety, but get the strong ones not the light duty ones that sell for 95 cents) for securing as they are easier to open and close than the oval links Hay Chix sells. The best way to fill them so far is to set a bale on end, undo the net and shimmy it over the whole bale, flip, tie it shut, plop it back in the trough and clip it in and then carefully slice the hay bale strings through the net and pull them out. This keeps the bale easy to handle and allows you to fit the maximum amount of hay into the net vs stuffing in flakes.