How to avoid horse tugging on hay net

[taylorelaine]

I hung up a hay net in my horse’s stall the other day, but I’m a bit worried about how he’s eating from it. He grabs the hay from the top and yanks it upward, pulling the hay bag with him. I was cringing watching him pull so aggressively with his neck, so I took it down.

I’m still hoping to be able to use a hay net somehow—I just want to avoid him having to tug and pull so hard on it. I gave him the choice of hay on the floor and hay in the hay bag, and he chose the hay from the bag. He seemed to really like the pulling, but I just wish he’d pull more gently and in a downward motion like most other horses.

I was looking at Nibble Nets, and I saw that they have rings at the bottom of the net that you can clip to the stall wall to help ground it more. I wonder if that would help? Is there any sort of danger or risk I might be missing when clipping the bottom of a hay bag to the wall?

Also, in the picture, you can see the height where I placed the hay bag—should it be higher?

[FjordBCRF]

What is your main purpose with the net? Limiting hay waste? Increasing chew time?

Your photo isn’t showing for me.

I use hay bags to increase chew time and slow my guy down. The hay bag seems to be a bit of a game for him. In his stall it gets hung, and he will hold and shake it to get hay out if he doesn’t have a good bite to get. When hes out in the dry lot, it goes on the ground and there seems to be less shaking that way.

What size holes are your net? If you aren’t trying to slow him down, I would try a net with larger holes if you can.

[taylorelaine]

Thanks for replying! Sorry, I just realized I never uploaded the picture. It’s up now. The hay net in the picture is with 2” holes. I’m using the hay nets because he loves his hay, but he is very careless and walks through it sometimes and I’m trying to reduce the mess and waste. He had colic surgery several years ago and has had ulcers in the past, so I’m always making sure he has hay always available to him, but if I give him anymore than a flake at a time the mess and waste is doubled.

[beowulf]

General rule is you want the hay bag to end at horse chest height or higher. If he has shoes I’d make it a little higher, you don’t want a shoe caught in one of the holes.

This is the Pony-Clubber (read: Safety Freak) in me - I would remove that wall mount and use a screw eye instead. The wall mount has sharp edges. Hang the screw-eye at least 5ft above ground. Replace the carabiner with a double ended snap. My general rule of thumb is nothing near eyes should be pointy, have long arms, or be risky. You would be surprised how many horses I’ve seen hurt their face or eyes on carabiner clips. As another rule of thumb, always make sure clips are clipped facing the wall, not the horse. Also consider a loop of baling twine around the screw eye to clip the net to. In the event a leg gets caught, the baling twine breaks before a leg or the wall does.

I love the style haynet you have, but my horses hated it, so it got relegated to a trailer hay net. YMMV. I use standard cotton rope to keep hay off the ground and slow consumption. Some horses yank the hay out initially and then settle into a more economical movement; give it time, he may just be irritated he has to work for his food now.

[NaturallyHappy]

To minimize yanking on the hay net, I cut pieces out of the hay net to make 4 inch holes. Some hay nets will unravel if you do that…

[endlessclimb]

My horses also hate that style of net. I cut out some of the webbing in a couple places to make it more like one of those HayPlay bags, and that helped.

[taylorelaine]

I’ve already returned the hay net, so sadly I can’t try cutting holes in it, but I’m looking at the hay play bags now. I’ve never heard of them before -has anyone used them and liked them? I was looking at the cotton rope hay bags too like the shires, but I’m worried about the knots not being the best on his teeth and I feel like they kind of move around a bit more. I was also looking at the nibble nets because they have rings at the bottom that you can connect to the wall, but I’m not sure if there’s anything not safe with that setup I should be worried about?

[Bluey]

Every horse has different ways to eat.
Some hang the bag where it is at an angle, don’t just hangs down, by fastening the bottom to the side.
When feeding, put one flake down on clean floor under the net and the rest in the net.
Horse then eats to first fill without hindrance, has the hay in the net to pick on once not hungry and anxious.

One point when feeding, watch your horse so he keeps changing position so it doesn’t develop a stiff neck from having to eat at a strange angle, or hay being so high it and it’s dust gets in his eyes.
As horse gets used to hay in net, how he eats may also change.

Just keep watching and tweaking, then tell us what you tried and what is working, so we can learn from it.

[red_mares]

Something too keep in mind is that what looks bad often isn’t really bad. A horse’s neck is really strong structure. Unless he’s got some under lying issue, pulling hay aggressively from a bag isn’t going to hurt him.

[FjordBCRF]

Check these out: https://gutzbusta.com/collections/top-picks/products/medium-knotless-slow-feed-hay-net?variant=42375100006591

Half my bags are Hay Chix, and the other half are the Gutzbustas. The knotless GB are quite soft, and they have held up really well. I did try a Hay Play bag last year and wasn’t impressed; the durability and the price tag didn’t match up.

[Ajierene]

Our hay nets hang low and have open tops and the horses eat from the top, sticking their heads in the nets. We have some metal hay racks hung higher and they usually pull a bunch out then eat off the ground.

Never had any issues, except sometimes poop in the net. If a horse doesn’t eat out of a half full net for a few days, I always check for poop.

[Foxglove]

At shows where I can supervise Bob, I put the hay net on the ground in one corner and tie it there so he can’t drag it around. At home, I hang his hay nets (he has two bale size in his shed so I don’t have to go out there with a bale except once a week. He also has 5 acres of good pasture, but because he hangs out in his shed to avoid flies? or be in the shade? (he has trees in one corner), I hang hay bags in there to give him something to do. Bob is the hay net master --he has a 1" square hay net from Hay Chix and can chow down an entire bale in three days.

[theresak]

If you don’t need to slow him down too much and are trying to avoid waste, try a porta grazer. I love mine. The only weird neck position my horse does is when it’s really full, he will push down and spin the lid with his muzzle to get hay fluffed up in the holes and easier to grab.

[Pico_Banana]

There’s also the savvy feeder. Similar idea to the portagrazer but different design. I really like it.

When I first tried nets with my mare, she hated the style you tried but would happily eat out of a regular net - the nylon string type. I’d try that and see how he does.

If he is not shod, you can put it on the floor even in his stall. But that makes it harder to get the hay, so I wouldn’t start with that. Also make sure you try a large hole to start. A 2 inch hole on that style is smaller than a 2 inch hole in a regular net because the regular net is more flexible.

[RedHorses]

I hang a net in my horse’s shelter in the summer when getting him to eat is difficult. It’s a regular 2" holed net (string/rope not straps). I tie it to an eye hook I can barely stretch high enough to reach, and tie a string tied to the bottom ring of the net around a low board on the shelter wall (I have used eye hooks low in other shelters when I could place it so it didn’t stick out at the horses). This stabilizes the net a great deal.