I know a few people have mentioned their barns feed free choice hay, and I am wondering how, particularly with square bales.
Trying to offer free choice hay over the winter, while minimizing waste. Not looking to make a big financial investment in feeders though: hoping for DYI options that will work for accident prone, and moderately overweight bratty geldings with front shoes.
Overweight horse with free choice hay may not be a good combo! My gelding stays fat practically looking at food, and cannot self-regulate - if a round bale is present, he’ll eat until bloated with diarrhea, looking miserable, and keep eating because it’s there.
I simply hang a few slow feed nets in several spots in the paddock. Enough to nibble on for awhile without gorging.
In the mares pens, they all have slow feed nets: the fatties just get the net filled 2x a day, plus a loose flake 3x a day, the others have a square bale net and then loose hay 3 times a day…but none of them have shoes so it is easy. The one gelding field has a round bale, and the other has a tire I fill with a bale in the morning and fork round bale hay to 3x a day, but they are making a mess of the tire hay.
I still have one field with five geldings that doesn’t have a slow/free feed option.
I would like to offer free/slow feed options in hopes it will offset the increased gas colic risks from the wild temperature/barometric changes we are now experiencing up north…
An old rubbermaid water tank 100g or 75g will fit a bale net fairly well. I put screw eyes on both sides of it and just clip the net in. We happen to have a few old cracked tanks which made this easy.
I love my High Country Slow Feed Hay Saver Box.
I feed with both the metal grate, and the webbed grate. The webbing is for our clover-heavy bales, since they are leafier.
I have a cheeky, smart gelding, and a Shetland pony stallion, and they have no qualms with it. My horse is shod.
You can build a wood hay rack that sits up off the ground and secure slow feed nets inside it.
I Installed nets in each pen attached to the fence with 2 inch by 2 inch cut to size boards. Throw the flakes between the rails and into the nets. Fast, easy, and keeps the fatties from getting too fat.
Not sure that helps with shod horses. You could buy a wood hay crib to feed out of.
I used to use a large slow feed net shared by two horses. I bought a large rectangular piece of small hole hay netting and just folded it in half and “sewed” each side together with hay band. I rolled both sides of the top over long pieces of dowel and “sewed” them into place. It made an easy to open and close envelope that I just closed with clips on rope, which hung onto the side of the run-in shed. It was cheap and worked really well, and it held a full square bale.
@CHT, thanks - I just found the idea from a google image search. If you search on “slow feed hay” you may find something that works for your setup. There are a lot of great DIY ideas out there. Personally, I avoid the metal grate designs because it would be my luck that it would damage their teeth. Some say the metal grates are fine, some say bad.
A hay net maker in our area makes “bale condoms” for round bales.- open at one end with weighted rubber tubing which fits over a round bale, holding it down on the ground. We have it with a small hole net for the fatties, they can nibble all day but only nibble! If horses are shod, it should be in a feeder but ours are all barefoot.
You can build a wood hay rack, and then attach slow feed nets to it.
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