Small square bale hay nets arrived today. I filled one with a full bale at 9:30 AM which should last my two geldings for approximately 24 hours, but it was empty before 5PM. What to do? Did I buy the wrong size hole? I got the original on the advice of a good friend who thought that the smaller hole net would prove to be frustrating. Now I’m the one who is frustrated! Opinions?
If they finished the hay that quickly then it does sound like you should have gone with the smaller hole net.
My two have mastered nets with 1" holes. Slows them down a bit but not all that much.
What size holes does the net have? Is there any grazing available or is the sole forage source the hay? If there’s no grass left, it’s not a stretch that two horses could eat a 50lb bale in 8ish hours between them. My 16.3h warmblood can eat 20-25lbs of hay in a Haychix net when stalled overnight.
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The net is advertised as the original. They have 1 3/4" holes I believe. No pasture this time of year. Both my horses get about a half bale a day divided into two feedings. I’m trying to keep hay in front of them longer without having them gain weight. Someone recommended putting half a bale in twice a day until they begin to self regulate which will hopefully happen sooner than later? I have 30 days to decide if I’m keeping these hay nets or exchanging/returning them… Hopefully they wont burn through the whole seasons hay supply get hugely fat in the mean time 
You could see if they’d let you exchange it for a 1 1/4 in net to see if that works better?
I just ordered six of these today. I’ll be interested to see how it goes. It doesn’t sound like the 1.75" slowed your horses down, but was there much waste? That’s what I’m tying to avoid. I have one that flips his hay out of the feeder and pees on it. Hoping these will prevent the hay flipping.
The original would make it easy for fast eating, compared to their other nets. One of my horses uses the 1" nets because she is a Hoover. The other gets the 1 1/4" because it’s heavy duty and she plays with everything she gets her mouth on, but when I introduced her to eating from a net it was with the original. I not save the original for trailers or small extra feedings to keep the hay tidy. Exchanges with Haychix is so easy if you go that route.
If their hay has been regulated up to now, they’re just going to eat until it’s gone, because that’s what they’re used to.
It takes a while for them to realize that they don’t have to vacuum it all up because there will always be more. And with two horses there may also be an element of competition.
Does the HayChix site have any advice on transitioning to free feeding? What I did was increase the number and amount of feedings until there was always some left the next time I went out. Eventually the anxiety of “OMG must eat it ALL there might not be any more EVER” of my very food oriented horse died down and now I can give him “a lot” without him eating it as fast as possible.
(Though he still eats more than he really needs… so it’s a balance between him getting too fat and standing around bored or eating things he shouldn’t, like leaves and acorns.)
This was our experience as well. A week of so of hoovering, then they stabilized. You knew they understood free feeding when they wandered around and didn’t spend every moment with their faces in the hay nets.
Our horses, which you would typically classify as hard keeping TBs, will eat 20-40lbs of hay per day per horse depending on activity, weather, and personality. Seasonally they eat more in the winter than the summer and on average we are going through about 25lbs of hay per day per horse over the course of the year. I have one horse (an appendix paint) who uses 1" hole nets or he will balloon unhealthily (but he also has a light work load so doesn’t burn calories), the others all use 2" holes and that really just keeps the hay from getting spread all over and becoming a mess.
