DIY hay steamer questions

[pawsplus]

Hi all – Haven’t been here for a while, but am back for a bad reason. BOTH my horses have RAO or COPD or heaves. Vet seems to be using the terms interchangeably. Anyway, it’s . Ventipulmin doesn’t seem to help much and I am working w/ my handyman to make a homemade hay steamer. My horses are out 24/7 but do not have a lot of grass (my place is in crappy bottom-land along a creek and there’s never a lot), so they eat hay year-round.

I have found some good pages online and gotten some advice from a friend who made one. We will be adding insulation to the inside of the box. 2 questions right now:

1. I need to be able to steam 3 well-stuffed small mesh hay nets plus a little extra 2X a day. The available Rubbermaid storage bins do not seem anywhere near big enough. I was looking at this deck box instead.

https://www.hayneedle.com/product/ke…d&tid=KNA034-1

Will that work? The only thing I can see as a potential problem is that it might leak a little (i.e., let steam out)–it comes in pieces and has to be screwed together. If I have my hangyguy seal the attachment points with silicone, would this work OK?

2. What do people do in the wintertime? Obviously I can’t put it on a timer the night before to start steaming at 4 am when it will be 20F overnight b/c the wallpaper steamer reservoir will freeze. I was thinking of either bringing it into the house (but am a bit worried about the effect of the steam on my walls and floors) or putting it in either the toolshed or the tackroom, neither of which is insulated, but which are at least small enough to heat to some degree with a space heater.

Thoughts? I am in Tennessee, which can get down into the teens and twenties, and often single digits, from late Dec. through Feb.

Thank you in advance!

[MyKindaFlower]

Hi OP,

Are you committed to the idea of a homemade steamer? I really like the half bale size of the Haygain Steamers and the boiler is pretty portable. I’m planning on just keeping that in the house during the coldest months and bringing it out to the barn just for steaming. It takes between 40 minutes to an hour to steam the first batch of hay but a second batch only takes about 20 minutes or so because the boiler is already hot.

I’m ultra paranoid about fire hazards and would be concerned about repurposing a wallpaper steamer for this use. I also avoid timers now after an incident with one that nearly caused a barn fire.

[walkinthewalk]

A lady on another forum built her own by herself. She lives in the New Brunswick area of Canada where it gets really buckin’ cold in the winter.

she used a big metal garbage can, a humidifier she used on her children when they were little, some sort of small grate, and slow feed hay bags. She also used a heavy duty outdoor extension cord to plug it in, inside the barn.

i don’t know how the humidifier held up over a winter’s worth of use but her system was spot on and she didn’t have more than $50 in it:)

[pawsplus]

I cannot afford a commercial one. It will not be in the barn, and at any rate, my horses are not in the barn, so they would not be at risk. MANY people have used wallpaper steamers for this purpose and so far, so good. I doubt the $2700 steamer uses something much different, actually.

A humidifier is not going to kill mold spores . . . You need a real steamer to get the hay to 220F. I would be interested, though, in knowing how she kept things from freezing! Wish she were on this forum. No one else?? The freezing issue is really going to be a problem.

[walkinthewalk]

@pawsplus

I cannot afford a commercial one. It will not be in the barn, and at any rate, my horses are not in the barn, so they would not be at risk. MANY people have used wallpaper steamers for this purpose and so far, so good. I doubt the $2700 steamer uses something much different, actually.

A humidifier is not going to kill mold spores . . . You need a real steamer to get the hay to 220F. I would be interested, though, in knowing how she kept things from freezing! Wish she were on this forum. No one else?? The freezing issue is really going to be a problem.

Her barn is new in the last few years ---- she has heat in her feed/tack room so that’s where the steamer is. That said, she never leaves it on when she isn’t in the barn.

her horse is around 19 and his issue is not COPD. She had to do some digging but was able to learn he had had pneumonia at some point in his life. He has scar tissue from it that only seems to bother him at night, during their cold months.

She was able to pin his breathing issues down by installing an Audi/video in his stall. My understanding is he only coughs at night when it’s cold enough to freeze your breath:(.