Does anyone have any experience with their pipe hay feeders rusting?
Yes, it happens. Are they painted? Mine were homemade steel bars, not painted. If you have rust lifting the paint or steel, take the mangers down to clean off rust, repaint or just replace the entire manger.
Those flaky pieces are VERY sharp, can be dangerous! My horse halfway cut his eyelid on a flake, had to have the Vet out on emergency, to sew eyelid back in place. I was right there pulling down ALL my rusty homemade mangers NOW, to prevent another accident!! I replaced the homemade mangers with antique, cast iron mangers. Looks nice with our antique stall divider bars. As the paint wears off with use, we pull mangers down, cleanoff old paint, any rust, repaint and put the mangers back up again. I like mangers for saving hay, lots less wasted by walking on it.
My horse’s eyelid healed well, no problems with it since stitch removal. No one can tell he had it stitched in the past, just looking at him, it is unnoticable. We figure he was rubbing his head on the manger to get injured. He likes to rub his head on things, which did make it difficult to keep him “dressed” when tied at the trailer! We found a solution to that, never had problems since.
They are the Klene hay feeders. They are several years old, but I thought ( I guess mistakenly) that they were galvanized and so wouldn’t rust.
Their literature calls their pipes painted 10 gauge tubing.
If you keep them painted, they should last long time.
If they get rusty, they will rust thru quickly, as happen to you.
Was thinking also, if you contact them, if yours are fairly new, they may offer some compensation, as it seems theirs should last 20 years?
