I was reading where folks do this. What do the horses do? Nibble on the cubes in the net - or pull them out? I have a 1.1/2" haynet. I would like to try this. Does it really slow them down? Perhaps with Standlee timothy/alfalfa cubes.
I have trouble picturing this. The only hay cubes I’ve ever used are extremely hard and dense alfalfa cubes. I always soak them and only use them as part of a grain mash, not in quantity for forage. I’m not sure a horse could nibble them through a small hole net.
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Sounds like a good recipe for choke. Seems in a net they’d just drop right out and be gobbled up. I won’t feed cubes dry (although I know people do).
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OP, where are you seeing a reference to feeding dry hay cubes in a net?
Maybe they are talking about those compressed little alfalfa cubes, about 2"-3"?
We used to feed those, scooping them off the feed room where they were delivered into thru a hole in the roof by a truck with a special auger and into those smaller tin buckets, one bucket full per horse equalled 1 1/2 good sized flake of alfalfa.
Some today call cubes those little cylindrical 1/2" pressed alfalfa meal pieces of assorted lengths.
A person could possibly fed those larger cubes in a hanging net with small holes.
To fee the little cylindrical alfalfa cubes, maybe look into the porta-grazer?
http://porta-grazer.com/porta-grazer-2/
In their web page is shows a horse eating those thru the holes in their feeder.
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I know some feed the 2" cubes dry, but I’ve never heard (or considered) putting them in a slow feed hay net. I can just picture my little welsh pony trying to figure out a way to get the 2" cubes out of a 1" hole, and deciding the best way was to rip the net open… I have known people to put alfalfa pellets into those dog or cat toys (before they invented them for horses) that dispense treats as you roll them around and play with them - as a way to entertain those that can’t have large meals or need to be slowed down eating. Now there are several choices made specifically for horses, though I don’t know what their capacity is.
I’ve always been hesitant to feed the 2" cubes dry, for fear of a horse choking because they didn’t chew the cube at all and it got stuck on the way down. But that’s just me.
Hmm…I feed both the small timothy cubes and larger alfalfa cubes. I also have some 1" hay nets. Cannot imagine using them together. A) I have fed dry as treats but usually soak with feed/supplements. I would not trust my horses to eat them at free will and not choke.
Too much of a choke risk.
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I feed soaked alfalfa/timothy cubes to my toothless senior. I also use small hole hay nets for mine at shows or 1 who is on lay-up. I can not imagine feeding the cubes in this wet or dry. It makes zero sense is seems implausible.
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I did this years ago when I boarded at a barn who would get skimpy on hay, but wouldn’t let me supplement with extra hay. So I came up with all sorts of creative ways to provide my horses with as close to free choice forage as possible.
I put a couple pounds of hay cubes inside a small hole net (with maybe 1.5" holes). I put the net inside a nylon hay bag with a solid bottom and a circular opening on the front. Then I would hang the whole thing up in the stall. My horse would knock the bag/net around with her mouth and head, mouthing at the cubes. Since the cubes did not easily fit through the holes of the net, it took quite a bit of movement to work them loose; the hay bag provided an extra layer of protection to prevent my gluttonous horse from getting too many at once or just eating a hole through the net. Eventually, 1 or 2 cubes at a time would fall to the ground. My horse would eat them one at a time off the ground in a head down position, which really reduces the choke risk from feeding dry cubes.
It worked well for the situation I was in at the time. It’s not a method I would choose to use on a regular basis when hay isn’t limited, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. It’s frustrating how many boarding barns there are that don’t provide adequate hay rations. My other horse at the time used an Amazing Graze, which I much preferred to the hay net method.
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So - I’m about to let my cowgirl show. 
Have you thought about feeding in a big tub and throwing some BIG rocks in there (big enough that they obviously would not try to eat, but not so big that they’re heavy and cant move) so that they have to nose around all of the rocks and it takes a while to eat everything? This has worked for me on horses and dogs.
They have those hay ball feeders for horses but I doubt my horse would figure it out and she loses interest in that kind of stuff easily.
Looks like there is a thread about this here - https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/forum/discussion-forums/horse-care/9658772-favorite-slow-feeder-for-hay-cubes
I’d be more inclined to get a deer feeder and load it with forage pellets. I have a ball feeder I use for pellets but it gets emptied out pretty quick.
Thanks your replies and thoughts. I read about it here on CofH !!! Probably a post of Texarkana’s. I gave it a quick try last night. I borrowed a few cubes (Standlee T/A’s that are not hard as rocks). I can see how it could work. My boy got the idea right away. Bite into a cube through the net. I didn’t see any damage to the net but would think over a short period of time - the strings would succumb to horse teeth. I put in a couple of whole cubes and the rest broken sections. When my boy was working on a whole cube those already broken sections fell through the holes to the ground. I"m going to try this again. “Tex” I would love to see pics of your set up for this - net and bag. Yes - I"m talking about dry cubes. I can’t use a loose “toy” as his stall doesn’t have a solid door -but a gate.
With a horse that’s a quiet eater and just nibbles, nets work nicely. I’m feeding a friend’s TB that eats like this: dainty. She gets a large hole net because she eats slowly and otherwise wastes hay.
My big glutton Paint attacks hay nets and really works them over. My concern there is that a horse being that busy with her head and neck for extended periods, is going to get stiff in the poll and neck.
Fighting with a hay net is nothing like grazing a nice pasture in terms of how the horse uses its body.
@grayarabs I don’t have a picture available; it was about 7 years ago and if I took a picture at the time, it’s lost on some previous phone or SD card.
But it wasn’t complicated: I just hung up the hay net from a hook in the stall as you would usually. I hung the hay bag from the same hook and pulled the net inside the hay bag, adjusting for height so the bottom of the hay net was in contact with the bottom of the bag. I used this style hay bag: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon…1L.SY587.jpg
I only did it that way because my mare is such a hog when it comes to food; without the hay bag, she’d get her entire mouth on the net and try to crunch all the cubes at once. She’d also grab hold of the net and shake it like a dog playing tug of war, which would make the cubes fall out faster and eventually rip the net to shreds. The smaller opening of the hay bag prevented her from mangling the net as badly.
I used to fill an Amazing Graze ($40) with cubes (I don’t anymore as now we have free-choice hay). Since the cubes barely fit through the hole, it would take her a lot of time and effort to get one out, eat it in a head-down position, then keep going. That thing was pretty tough, and should think it would last a lot longer than most hay bags. (And an Amazing Graze is nice to have around in case of layups, extended stall time for bad weather, etc.)
I saw this and had to share. https://www.facebook.com/help.shtml/…15067291090436
How timely. There’s gotta be a way to slow feed hay cubes. Not this way, of course.
I would love to get an Amazing Grace, but it would likely roll away under the stall gate.
Neat, smart horse that.
We had two yearling colts in the gelding pasture that entertained themselves with each other.
One would routinely pick up a long stick and drive the other around like longing him, as the other would run around for a bit and then try to grab the other end of the stick before it hit him.
Those two were using that stick purposefully as a handy tool, no accidental toy that.
The adult geldings would stand there watching the show.
When wanting a horse to slow down it’s eating of processed food, we used the old black rubber feeding tubs, we would get some football sized roundish river rocks and put 2-4 of them in the bucket with the feed.
Not sure how much it did slow them down, but some.
I think there is a thin line between making eating harder enough to slow down their eating or annoying a horse by demanding they work hard at getting to their food.
Some horses get angry with their hay nets when they first start eating, if they are hard to get food out of them.
Not sure we want horses to be made angry, may not be a good idea, better watch that a horse does ok with whatever way we decide to manage them.
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I use a 1” feed net, place them in, then soak the cubes in the net for a day then give it to my senior.
It’s been amazing. He loves it and is much happier being in at night. He was having trouble with chopped hay and he finds eating regular hay uncomfortable.
Yea, I second the concern about “stiff in poll and neck”, and “fighting hay net.”
And there is a way to slow feed cubes, soaked of course, with an auto.
