This is a spinoff from the “how to split flakes of hay” thread. I weigh flakes of hay using a plastic tub that I pick up with a hand held $5 Walmart fish scale that only weighs in 1 pound increments. It is neither very accurate nor very elegant. I’m looking for a better weighing setup. I need to weigh hay flakes because my horses are regularly fat-shamed by my vet and my estimating weight skills are abysmal.
For you who weigh hay flakes before serving them, how do you do it?
I use a hay net and a cheap fish scale. That seems accurate enough.
I’ve done a hay net and then weigh it or put it in a laundry basket with a bungee cord and weigh it. They worked out to about the same….
Postal scale
Haynet with luggage scale
I use this scale: Hanging Scale. I do up a day’s worth of hay for my 3 horses in muck tubs for each of 4 feedings (so a dozen tubs - the cheap ones from Target work for this, and a different color for each horse helps to keep my SO from feeding the wrong one). I hang the scale from a broom handle on a ladder to save my back, and do up the 12 buckets, then put the scale back in the tack room as I’ve learned they don’t last if you leave them out in the cold and damp (despite being marketed as a “fish scale”). It doesn’t take that long to do and then at each feeding, we just know to grab a bucket of hay and it is ready to go. I have one IR/EMS horse and two other fatties so this really helps to keep their weight under control. Since I’m allergic to hay/dust, it also helps me to do it all at once with a mask on, then later I can just dump and run and not get too exposed.
I have a timed feeder setup in my loft and also use hay nets some times.
I use a digital fishscale that gives me pounds and ounces, I put the hay in a big plastic IKEA tote they sell cheap at checkout. Costco also has same. Or stuff a net first. Know the weight of your container and deduct. My bags are 4 ounces and my nets are 2 lbs 6 ounces. It adds up.
If the bags were too heavy to.hold up I would hang the scale from the ceiling.
I have basically the same setup as Garythesquirrel, and use a digital fish scale to weigh hay for outside, and inside in a hay bag. It’s made a ton of difference in weight loss. I will admit it took me months to figure out how to add hay and have the scale include it in the displayed total.
do they catch whales where yu live? Fishing tourneys are decided by ounces plenty of times ! 
But a hay net and a fishing scale should be plenty.
or one of the other nice ideas
Same as @horsepoor – American Weigh Scales H-series with the hook on the bottom. I either zero it with the hay bag on the hook, fill it, and then weigh the hay, or after a while if I’m using a set of the same bags, I know how much they weigh and just do the math.
Same experience as well, bring it back in the house or tack room or it won’t last very long.
I weigh hay using a fish scale and the big blue IKEA bags. The scale technically has TARE on it, but I haven’t quite mastered the art of chucking a flake in while it’s on the tiny little scale hook without the scale then reading the weight when the flake isn’t entirely inside of the bag … so I just weigh the bag (they’re really light) and deduct that from the total weight with the hay. It’s worked pretty good so far.
A friend of mine used a flat analog bathroom style scale on a worktable and put the hay in a laundry basket on it. It worked quite well, and to my recollection, the whole setup always lived in the barn aisle.
I use this setup except a slightly different scale (also Taylor from Amazon, though). The baling twine on the muck bucket also works as a shoulder strap when I carry unnetted hay (for the llamas, or the stemmy 1st cut for the horses); otherwise I move it into my nets from the tub.
I did like using a digital scale the first fall, but it stopped working when the weather turned cold. Does anyone have a scale they love that works well down to around zero (Fahrenheit)?
“My horses are regularly fat shamed by the vet”
Idk how to quote on mobile but this made me LOL.
Like the vet gave up on telling you the horses are fat and has decided to go straight to the source.
“Dobbin, Mr. Wicker’s? We need to talk about all of this junk in your trunks. Horses don’t have trunks, that’s elephants. Which you’re almost fat enough to be. Time to turn down the alfalfa boys.”
Luggage scale with a net.
Flat bathroom scale - hold the net, get the weight, drop the net, get your weight, subtract your weight from the you+net weight.
I’m confused - aren’t you weighing it now? Do you think your fish scale is inaccurate? I have done digital before and the screen gets damaged from being outside. Right now doing like many others, haynet and luggage scale, hanging in the doorway of the feed room.
https://www.grainger.com/product/3NZN6?ef_id=Cj0KCQiA5aWOBhDMARIsAIXLlkciEkQ02lg-aWSZHBdyRN6ZZLb2Yla7GHwV6XPt1OTksC7bVVbgpIcaAoh2EALw_wcB:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!2966!3!264955916132!!!g!438323477963!&gucid=N:N:PS:Paid:GGL:CSM-2295:4P7A1P:20501231&gclid=Cj0KCQiA5aWOBhDMARIsAIXLlkciEkQ02lg-aWSZHBdyRN6ZZLb2Yla7GHwV6XPt1OTksC7bVVbgpIcaAoh2EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
My barn has something like this hanging in the hay area:
Most of the hay nets are the same, so we set the tare weight for them. Set up is fairly easy to use. All the horses get their hay in nets.
If folks are feeding big squares, they could easily break that lovely scale. The first bale of my fresh shipment this year had 30lb flakes. :o I don’t normally weigh, but thought my horse wasn’t eating quite as well as normal. LoL. She was fine, the indoor buffet was just overstuffed by about 10-20lbs depending on how long she was using the outdoor buffet on any given day.
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