My mare cannot eat hay, so all winter she gets a “mush” of pelleted feed, beet pulp, and hay stretcher. Has anyone found an automatic feeder that can handle this?
You mean like “free-choice” quantities like one would feed hay?
It seems so simple but so complicated at the same time.
It would have to be very easy to clean because we all know how much of a mess soaked feed makes.
It would have to be water tight so the water does not just drain out on the floor between feedings, leaving the slurry to dry out.
It would have to be designed in a way that the slurry would easily dispense. Not stick as a glob in a corner and not come out.
It would also have to have some way to keep it from freezing if you are in the part of the world that things freeze.
Have you tried using/adding soaked cubes to see if that would take her longer to eat?
2 Likes
It would also have to dispense well enough/often enough so that the pellets don’t ferment in warmer weather.
Why can’t the mare eat hay? (No teeth, bad teeth?) How old is she?
1 Like
My friend’s horse cannot eat hay either. It has to do with his wonky digestion of long stems… After years of (small) colicking plenty of times per year, vet hospital recommended hay pellets.
Short grass in pasture/paddock seems to be fine.
Her horse is blooming since then.
Some horses wouldn’t have survived in the wild. This is one of them! :lol:
Having trouble imagining this… I soak all of the pellets/senior feed mine gets and he just eats out of the container that I soak them in.
So going back a step, what problem are you trying to solve?
Do you board and need to make things easy for the barn staff? Or do you need to be away from home for long periods of time and need a way to soak-and-feed with no one there?
1 Like
This is amazing. Does it work well? I would buy this in a second if it meant I didn’t have to go to the barn 2x a day.
That looks pretty amazing for dry foods. I would be afraid that by the time the last 2-3 drops came, especially if it’s 8+ hours later, anything that had been soaking would be drying out and either compacted from sitting, or other issues that would increase the risk of choke, if it could even come out of the feeder, especially if it’s far enough below freezing for long enough. Right off the bat some of the water in the mash will drain out.
How far away is the barn? Is there someone there who can just dump whatever you fixed in the morning? Laying eyes on a horse who has special eating needs, twice a day, is probably a good thing :yes:
1 Like
I can totally see beet pulp being a stinky fermented mess in this for sure.
I’m no more than 6-7 mins from the barn, IN Orange County traffic, it’s insanely close. Honestly, I think I would probably still go even if I bought this. I love my new barn!
They would feed for me, but it seems like if you dump a bunch of food into her manger, she won’t finish it all, but she does finish smaller amounts. Also, I like to monitor how much/quickly/well she’s going through it, and I can’t unless I’m checking up on it that often.
