Love the ones from Hay Chix. I’ve used their round bale nets for years and, with a new run-in my hubby built, added 2 of their Free Up feeders. Open, dump, close. That’s that!
regarding hay nets the one thing to me as a way to improve the product would be make the string used to gather/enclose the net of a different color than that used to make the net
At times with the string being the same color it hard to locate
Small_change, thank you for posting this! I have friends who use this technique and love it.
This post is a great example of we all like things a different way and when it comes to hay bags/nets and filling them, that is for sure the truth.
I am thankful there are so many ways of filling discussed in all these threads so everyone can try the various techniques and figure out what they like best for filling.
I found a trash can was not right, too tall and not big enough in diameter. A muck bucket without the protruding handles is the best for me. (The muck bucket I use only had rope handles that went thru grommeted holes in the side, which would have worked horrible for an actual muck bucket but with the rope handles removed works amazingly for filling hay bags.)
I tried to the two hooks on the wall technique and I do not like only having one hand to handle the hay I am putting in. I drop too much and make a mess everywhere.
What I do not like about the technique I use is there is lots of bending over and standing up again. I suppose it is keeping me limber, touching the ground as I pull the hay bag over the edges of the muck bucket, etc.
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Pretty easy to change that out. Heck, you can switch between bags if you do not want to use other rope.
I have two Nibble Nets that are ancient. A decade old at least. Still in perfect working order. I find them easier to use than traditional nets. I leave the strap clipped to the solid side of the net, toss them on the ground near my hay, pick up hay and hold in left arm, grab webbing side of nibble net with right hand and slide the hay right in. They are the perfect size to hold one or two flakes of Teff hay off the large 3 string bales I get.
I would like to try hay pillows or the hay play bags for use in my dry lot so I don’t have to hang them up but it’s hard to justify more spending when the nibble nets work perfectly fine.
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Interesting. I generally leave mine hanging, just open the front side, and slide 2-3 flake of hay into them. I can do all of this while holding the hay and basically unclipping the front of the bag with one hand.
Yep, this is what I do. I have a color assigned to each horse, and several nets in each color. If I have someone other than me feeding hay, I have them filled and ready to go. I hang them from an eye hook with locking caribiners. I use two locking caribiners connected to a heavy-duty swivel so they can rotate if needed (some of my horses LOVE to swing them around, so the swivel prevents them from twisting the whole thing up and possibly breaking caribiners.)
Yes! We buy a roll of heavier duty poly string that works really well in bright yellow, so it’s easy to see and seems to last longer then the string that comes with the bales. You have to be sure the strong knots well enough, though. Some poly doesn’t hold a knot very well.
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