See my bales are 1000+lbs each, there is no way I am flip them myself or with DH help. I pull them out with my truck using a cable wrapped around them, to the field through snow and drifts so just flipping a bale to put the net on is not going to happen.
I do like the hop net but shipping to me would put the price way over the top. I will have to see if I can come up with something.
4 ft x 5 ft diameter rounds, roughly 1000 lbs. Small hole hay net. Tombstone metal feeder. Hubby brings the bale around on the tractor bale spear. Holds it about a foot off the ground. Two of us āshrugā the net under and then over the bale. Pull the loop tight near the spear attachment. He sets the bale down and I do up a slip knot and tuck the extra rope inside the net. Goes around to other side and lifts the netted bale up and then puts it in the feeder. I can get 6-7 days for a hard keeping Tb, fat ass QH and his fat Halflinger girlfriend, Connemara and Paso Fino. The Tb put ON weight and we have zero waste. We are still cleaning up old hay from before we started netting the bales. Third winter and needs weekly patching due to the QHās secondary occupation as a beaver in his old age! Fat ones thinned down, thin ones fattened up, tombstones prevent territorial disputes. Well worth the aggravation!
Canāt one just put the net over the bale, then give the bale one more push with the truck/tractor, and have it in the bag?
Iām going to get one of the nets; we live in a windy area and the first thing the horses do is grab a big bite of hay and shake it all out into the wind. poof no more hay.
I now have a large net for our rounds and I can get it on by myself, using the tractor bucket to help move it around.
My issue is now that the freezing weather is here, it is going to freeze into the ground and I wonāt be able to get it out until spring. This happened to my neighbour last year.
I do notā¦ nor do I intend to get ā¦ a feeder to put in into. My pony would not be able to reach into it.
And I donāt want to use wood pallets - too dangerous.
Today I set the round bale on the ground and slid the net over it.
And I did not tip it up and tie it off underneathā¦I just left it draped down and around the bale.
I figure the worst that can happen is theyāll pull it off and drag it around the paddock.
The horses (3 older, super quiet) are all barefoot and do not wear blanketsā¦ nothing for the net to get stuck on.
It was fine when I checked it at 4pmā¦
Thoughts??
I do not see why not. That seems like a very reasonable way to move it the small amount needed to secure the net.
No flipping needed, just a little roll.
[QUOTE=Mallard;7887925]
My issue is now that the freezing weather is here, it is going to freeze into the ground and I wonāt be able to get it out until spring. This happened to my neighbour last year.
I do notā¦ nor do I intend to get ā¦ a feeder to put in into. My pony would not be able to reach into it.
And I donāt want to use wood pallets - too dangerous.[/QUOTE]
Could you use a pallet and put a solid top (plywood sheets) on it so it is like a very low table? That would be safe and keep the net mostly off the ground.
[QUOTE=Mallard;7887925]
Today I set the round bale on the ground and slid the net over it.
And I did not tip it up and tie it off underneathā¦I just left it draped down and around the bale.
Thoughts??[/QUOTE]
That seems like a good way to do it. I would probably check it regularly to make sure it still covers the bale since pulling can easily move it quite a bit.
Maybe it could be set on a rubber mat? If the mat froze up you could drive over it/knock it around with the truck to break the ice off.
So far this all sounds very manageable for us and Iām glad. Tired of seeing hay offerings to the Wind Gods.
This sounds like a great idea if you have a flat spot. It might take two mats to cover the whole foot print of the round bale.
LOL. I donāt think you under stand there is no way I can move that bale without the cable wrapped around the bale and pulling it. When I put the cable on before hooking to truck, bale is on its side (round) it flips up on to the flat end and then I drag it down the road and into the field. In doing so the bale is now like a snow blade and there is now a small amount of snow piled up at the base of the bale. I unhook the cable from truck pull it off the top of bale and then rehook cable to truck to pull it out from under bale. Now that is if everything goes right. You canāt push these bales with a truck, I know I have tried. It takes 2-3 men to roll them when they are on there side.
I bought a Hay Hut last fall, and just ordered a Cinch Chix round bale net over the weekend. My horsesā main goal in life seems to be to joyously snatch large mouthfuls of hay and fling them into the wind, to land outside the safe confines of the Hay Hut and get peed on, pooped on and generally stomped into oblivion. Iām looking forward to the arrival and addition of the net.
I will say that they probably wasted a solid 40% of a round bale before I invested in the Hay Hut, and now Iād say the waste is down to about 10-15%. They REALLY enjoy hay-flinging.
They will have to find something else to do.
Add me to the camp that the slow feed nets really work. I use a spear on my tractor, stab the bale, slide the net on and deposit it into a covered feeder (a roof, one wall in back and three open sides with bars)
Before the nets, they would go through a bale every 3 to 4 days. With the net, its a week. Waste dropped to almost nothing.
I have mine through Cinch Chix. The only issue I have is that one of my horses has learned to gnaw holes in the net. I am constantly repairing holes on an almost new net.
Eleanor, I get your system now and it sounds like youāre using the big bales. Hmm, Iāll ponder the possible ways to get that net under there easily/reasonably.
The bale is out, in itās bag. We just spiked the bale, picked it up, unwrapped the net to the last layer, pulled the hay net around the bale, pulled off the last layer of net then cinched up the hay net and transported the bale out to the field and set it in the hay ring. Normally we would set out a new bale on Sunday, so I will update then. It was easy to bag up the bale, but we have a tractor. Itād take some doing with a pickup.
[QUOTE=cowboymom;7889179]
Eleanor, I get your system now and it sounds like youāre using the big bales. Hmm, Iāll ponder the possible ways to get that net under there easily/reasonably.[/QUOTE]
Yes these bales are 1000+ lbs and are 5āx6ā. 5ā on side and 6ā on end. not small rounds. I had 6 of those in the fall and they where nice to work with but the hay was not the best. Went with better hay from a different hay guy but the bales are a lot bigger.
If I could just place my bale in field then put the net on and tie off that the bottom of the bale. I would try that, but I donāt want to spend $200+ on a net and find out that wonāt work, as then I am out $200 which is 4 bales of hay.
OPā¦ those bales are HUGE ā¦ I have no suggestions.
FYIā¦ my ālooseā net was still covering the entire bale after 24 hours of use.
It had been pulled slightly off to one side, but was easy to straighten up.
I am going to leave it as it is, and see what happens as they eat it down.
Even if I slow them down for a only couple of days, itās better than them gobbling it all up at once.
The haylow people will do a 6ā net. Given the size of the bale and how easy they make it look to put on, that might be your best bet?
Or find a farmer whoās not putting up such large rounds 
[QUOTE=Cindyg;7884277]
My round bale arrived in the back of a pick up truck. We climbed on the truck and put the net over as much of the bale as we could. Then we pushed the bale off the truck into the remainder of the net.
It was as hard as heck. Took at least two people. Four was better.[/QUOTE]
This is exactly the way I do it. But, my round bales must be smaller than Cindygās because I can do it by myself.
I just picked up a Cinch Chix off of eBay. Wouldnāt mind finding a 2nd one that I donāt have to pay full price for. There is a knock off on eBay for $177 for the 6ft round bale size.
Our bales are 1200-1500 lbsā¦ not very portable.
Eleanor, youāve got me stumped and weāre usually good at figuring things like this out. I can think of a couple āmaybe itāll worksā but probably nothing on a permanent reliable basis. Unless the cable could pull the net under the bale as it goes without damaging the net?
Our 6ā rounds are in the 1200-1500 lb range too. They laugh at the human who thinks they can even be budged by hand. Like cowboymom, I am picturing various ways to use the tow rope and truck to drop/flip/roll the bales to get the net on, but none are well-controlled, sane processes. Itās all engineering-on-the-fly, thatās frankly not the safest way to conduct your farming ops. I do that crap all the time, but starting a 1500lb round object in uncontrolled motion is not something to be taken lightly.
Iād suggest trying a hockey net first and test the concept. Itās a 1-3/4" mesh and you can get a 10x10 net for <$50 here (or any custom size you want). Shouldnāt be too hard to jerryrig some way to cinch it up safely.
I was going to get DH to video my process of putting my bales out today, but I dropped my phone in a sink full of water last night.
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