Building a hay feeder into a stall? Thoughts?

[PonyRiderMom]

My two barn stalls each have a four-foot wide doorway near one end. The doorways were built so they are about 18 inches or so from the end stall wall. Right now in both stalls I have a water bucket there. But I’d like to put a hay feeder. I thought about just hanging a hay net and putting a trough under it to catch what falls out, but one of them tends to paw over troughs and then that would end up with a trough possibly in front of the doorway, which doesn’t seem entirely safe to me. Plus while I really appreciate hay nets, I do worry about that not being a very natural way to feed.

So I was thinking about building in a wooden hay feeder in that corner. It could be a triangle or a rectangle. I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what would be good dimensions, height off the floor, anything really. I don’t want it so low to the ground that they are sticking their feet in it, but of course it’s more natural for horses to eat lower to the ground so I don’t want it too high either. I’m thinking to have some sort of little holes at the bottom for the hay dust to fall out?

ETA the stalls are about 15’ x 9’ (size was dictated by pole spacing in barn) so they are not tiny.

Also ETA: they do like to waste hay, so ideally there would be some way to keep them from just pulling it out and dropping it on the ground.

Final ETA: well I actually just measured, and one of them is 22 inches from the edge of the door frame to the wall, and the other is 26 inches.

[Bluey]

First, I am sure you already are counting on it, have a mat underneath and keep bedding swept off it, so they can easily eat what they drop.

I would start with hanging different kinds of bags, or put one of those hoops with a bag that are easy to fill and the top closes back and see what happens.
We also have used in similar places a deeper rubber feed bucket with three snaps for hanging them and put their hay in there and that worked for many horses, although not all.
It also depends on what kind of hay, if wasteful and stemmy and hard to pull apart, a plain hanging bag may work better.

The rubber buckets, not plastic or metal ones, was because in such places where a horse will walk thru are safer if they bump into one.

I do think hanging bags for long term solution may not be best for all horses, especially oder ones with stiffer necks and jaws, as you say, kind of unnatural ways for horses to eat all day long like that.

Building one out of wood, I think using wood you would lose inches where you are already in a tight space.
Not much room for hay volume in 18" across.

They also have hay racks that have a small pan underneath, if you can find one that fits there, hanging from the other side from the door corner wall.
We have used some like those in many places, mostly outside but also in the quarantine barn, they are easy to get down and disinfect from a stall wall or a fence:

https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=c71d7071-d785-42f7-be86-b8da60d83cb8&itemguid=ba5cfe05-18fc-43c2-a602-76976b64649f&sfb=1&grp=7000&grpc=7200&grpsc=7210&sp=e&utm_content=41265&ccd=IFH003&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADv68NV71CDtquBkzIwA28fK3PGFZ&gclid=CjwKCAiA2cu9BhBhEiwAft6IxOZomDtbgW1oSURnTiC5LzpHx8eZChOjy0jJQRWg-j79RykYSbxH_RoC6IAQAvD_BwE

Edited to add, we feed nice alfalfa hay directly on mats by the stall wall that we keep well swept.
Horses eat calmly every bit of it and there is no waste.