Funny, trub, my gelding is a bit of the same! He’s actually pretty good about loose hay but will ignore it 100% for netted hay. I think I’m doing him a favor by tossing a flake on the ground near his net…only to come back in the morning with the net nearly empty and the flake barely picked at. He’s kind of a weirdo, but I’ll take it! :lol:
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Mine are fed from nets on the ground.
I have removed all the draw strings and after stuffing the nets I use a large (3" ?) Caribiner clip to close the little lopps up.
If it is really muddy then I just clip the nets to rings on the side of the shelter/barn. Rings are at an appropriate height so the nets just reach the ground when empty.
My guys are all barefoot. Don’t think I’d do this with shod horses.
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Can you give one flake over the course of a few hours instead of giving all their hay at once? That is what we do. A flake or two and then before bed go back out and give a couple more. Really helps to prevent waste.
'd use a hay rack or hay net if possible without being too high if that is not the option.
I tried hay nets and ended up with a horse with such a sore neck he was unrideable. I now use Porta Grazers and I’ll never use anything else. They aren’t cheap but they are SUPER durable, easy to use, clean and transport, and my horses have no problems eating out of them. I don’t find any hay being wasted anymore - not a stalk. I’ve saved in wasted hay many times over what I paid for them.
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Which size or sizes do you use? How easy was the transition?
My mare is fed 1-2 flakes from a 2-string bale at a time (about 7 flakes per day total) and I doubt the boarding barn would agree to just fill a Porta-Grazer completely. So I am thinking the mini/pony size one.
She’s outsmarted her 1 1/4-inch hole NibbleNet by yanking on it hard enough to pull out a big chunk of hay, and I worry about her getting a sore neck. I mean a big enough chunk or bundle that she can’t chew it all at once, so she drops most of it on the floor and “grazes” it up. This horse does not leave one tiny piece of hay in her stall, ever.
I have both the XL and the Mini and I would only buy the XL again. The mini only holds two flakes of hay and I have to refill it more often. The XL easily holds 4. I keep hay in front of my horses 24/7 (except when they’re on pasture) and it’s a PITA to always have to run to the barn to add more hay to the one horse’s feeder. I need to buy another XL LOL.
I have two horses - one is really smart, the other makes a box of rocks look like a rocket scientist. Mr. Dumdum figured it out in about 5 days. I just fed him from the feeder without the pan for 4 days, and then put the pan in it on day 5. I tried putting the pan in on day 2 (because my normal horse figured it out in ONE day LOL) and he just stared at me. They both can tilt it back up if they tip it over. In the stall, I have it chained to a support post to keep it in one spot, otherwise it travels as they pull hay out and the stalls end up a disaster. This way, they poop and pee in the same spot and cleaning stalls is super easy LOL.
Thanks for replying. In my situation, the Mini would make more sense because my mare is not fed more than 2 flakes at a time, except perhaps on very cold winter nights when she would get an extra flake or two. I suspect she’d get very fat if she had hay 24/7 but I’ve always wanted to try it… As a boarder, that just isn’t an option. Though come to think of it, during the very tough winter of 2015, she basically spent 3 months standing on a pile of hay, and she did self-regulate once she realized that the hay would never actually go away. However, once the weather warmed up in the spring, and the hay pile remained, she got very fat.
She’s just funny about food… She is basically sure that she is going to starve to death, all of the time, and will beg and beg for more hay. She isn’t aggressive, just very very talkative. And able to figure out how to defeat just about any “slow feeder” out there, but I have not tried a Porta-grazer.
Securing any hay net or slow feeder in the stall will be an issue. Does the Porta-grazer have any obvious way to be attached to something?
I feed much less hay now that mine don’t waste it. Three flakes in the morning and three at night used to last them two-three hours, tops. I was giving hay at lunch and hay at bedtime, too. Now I put three in the morning and it’s still there at 5 when I do afternoon feeding. I put three more in and it lasts until morning. So they are eating pretty much exactly what they need to maintain their weight, and not waste any. Yaaay!
The Porta Grazer has handles molded to the rim. I have a chain with a bull snap through the handle, which I clip to a piece of baling twine that’s on a bolt in the stall. That way if they catch a hoof or something, it’ll break away. They can still tip the grazers over, even tied up like that, but they can easily pop them upright again. It just keeps them from traveling around the stall.
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I have found from watching many stalled horses over the years a lot less is wasted if the caretaker shakes out the flakes into a pile instead of just tossing the flakes on the ground. Most horse tend to just stand over the pile and eat by and large. The horses I just put the flakes on the ground always tend to paw them around to break up I suppose.
Of course there are always the ones that will paw at flakes or shaken out piles. We use the regular hay nets that have been around for years. Natural fiber rope nets NOT the nylon made. A horse that gets its leg caught in one of the nylon nets can do a lot of damage to itself because they rarely brake, terrible “nylon burns, cuts”.
I do not use slow feeder, small hole nets. I have been reading/hearing more and more reports of hoses developing neck issues from the use of these, They can get a type of carpal tunnel syndrome from the repetitive motion it takes for them to keep pulling, working at pulling small bits of hay out of them. To each their own on this.
Last spring I did a little “study” to find out how much hay goes wasted when feeding horses on the ground that live out 24/7. The horses were being feed 20 lbs per day, Around 5 bales per day broken into 10 individual piles, 1 per horse. December through March+. Around 500+ bales, around 22,500 lbs. Come spring I used my hay rake to rake up the remaining hay in the areas they were usually feed. I baled it. got around 14 30+lbs bales. Not exactly scientific by give me a good enough idea that not a lot of hay goes wasted in the end. Around 500 lbs out of 22,500 lbs. In the grand scheme of things pretty much meaningless. A lot of labor “expense” saved just tossing/making piles. Easily more than the cost of the hay.
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If you are worried about strained necks they make different styles of hay nets. Some with the square windows or an open hole at the bottom of the “bag”
I hate hay nets. They are a huge time suck in the morning when am trying to get horses fed before I go off to work. And the slow feeder ones are the worst. Hard to get hay in and usually all I could get in one was two flakes.
Now that I have said that I have one mare who will pee on any hay on the ground. She has her stall door open 24x7 but if there is any bedding or hay in the stall that will keep the urine from splashing on her she pees all over it instead of stepping outside. You know - there are bugs out there, no fan, it might rain at some time…
Her hay goes into a net. Especially the nice timothy that is almost impossible to get in Alabama. All of it in a net. She eats it fine out of the net. None wasted, she has no shoes, not prone to pawing to get her foot stuck anyway. Her neck is fine. So is my nose - no nasty urine soaked hay to shovel out of her stall.
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The trick is to have enough hay nets so you can fill them ahead of time when you are doing chores on a tight time schedule.
Filling a net is easy if you know the tricks. I personally use a muck bucket (clean, no handles). Put the net inside and then slide it down over the outside until the bottom of the net is close to the top of the muck bucket and the top of the net is down by the ground on the outside of the much bucket, kind of like the old sheet ghost costume look. Put the hay into the net, pushing down, the net will just slide up the bucket and close around the hay. This technique allows you to put as much hay into the net as you can shove into a muck bucket.
Other people just use two hooks on the wall, attach two points of the net and hold open at a third point with one hand and easily shove the hay inside.
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You just gave me a GREAT idea! 
I have monster size hay nets that hold more than a three string bale – they go in big rubber tubs in my run-in shed (one for each horse) – hold enough hay for almost a week. Since I put various types of hay in them (timothy/orchard/alfalfa mix) these nets – five feet tall – are REALLY hard to fill (flake by flake) with ease.
Holding the nets open is the problem. So…
…I’m going to cut the bottom out of a muck basket (or big plastic garbage can) and use it as a sleeve – slip it into the net so as to hold it open – then stuff hay in and raise up the sleeve as I go.
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You need bigger nets! I use the 50" Shire’s nets. I fill every other day, and they hold an entire small bale. Easy to fill–stand the bale up on end, slide net over the bale, flip upright, cut the strings on the bale, tie and hang the net.
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And coincidentally, my mare is now hay net-less as she has developed what her massage person calls “the hay net muscle” on one side of her neck. Which does not help with all the other ways she is asymmetric.
I wish I had video of her attacking the net. I have never seen a horse this extreme. There are all these videos out there of horses calmly nibbling away, but I got the one who will do anything to defeat the purpose of a small-hole feeder.
I think the Porta-Grazer might work, because she’d have to stick her head into it to get at the hay… but it’s a lot of money if it doesn’t work.
Argh. Horses!
I prefer to feed from the ground, however have a few horses that I use haybags with. They either move around a lot resulting in hay being moved around their stall and stepped on or pooped/peed on or eat too quickly as my one EASY keeper pony does. They eat well out of the hay bags and the messy horses (who also happen to be hard-keepers) end up eating more hay than if I leave the hay on the ground for them. I want them to eat as much hay as possible and the haybags allow for this by keeping their hay from being trashed.
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I feed hay on the ground.Don’t like hay nets just makes for sore necked horse’s. Feed big round and they are put out in pasture. Just scrape up wasted hay with bobcat.
No hay being fed now till late november. Horse’s are on pasture, they won’t eat hay this time of year.
I’m trying an experiment with my pony right now using one of these: http://www.chicksaddlery.com/page/CDS/PROD/SF1937 as a hay pillow. It has three sets of d-rings at the opening, and I’m using some very small screw lock carabiners to close them. Pony is unshod and did great with it the first night, but was terrified of the scary hay beast in the light of day - but got over it the next evening, thankfully. The tiny carabiners are kind of a pain in the butt, but they are secure and I’m not worried that they’ll break (and I had a handful of them). Would love to know what kind of fasteners other folks are using and if they’re holding up.
After experimenting with the kids over my five day holiday weekend, I stuffed hay nets again last night for today. They just wasted too much hay. I started out with a flake of their alfalfa/orchard grass and a flake of first cutting orchard grass. The issue horses ground the orchard grass into their bedding by mid-day. I then just gave the alfalfa/orchard and gave a flake of orchard grass mid-day. Again, but evening feed, they had ground most of their orchard grass into their bedding.
I could probably go back to feeding on the ground when I’m feeding a second cutting hay that they all like better, but for now it’s hay nets. I love the hay pillow idea, but with everyone shod, I can’t do it.
It’s likely that they are all just not very hungry for hay, since they all have access to grass at night. But all the same, these kids are hard keepers, I cannot NOT provide access to hay. Even if they don’t eat it, they need to option of having it if they want it.
I have conflicting feelings between feeding on the grd and using a haynet. I have an IR horse who is suppose to have her hay in a net to slow her down. She inhales when the hay is on the floor and can go thru hay in record time. But I look at the angle of her head and neck from eating from the net and I wonder how that could be good for her. I board so some of the feeders on the floor wont fly.
