Safety of Hay Hut Feeder

[kaya842]

Hi again.

I need a round bale feeding solution. I have a herd of 1 now and almost 10,000lbs in round baled hay. I can’t free feed a whole bale as it will go bad long, long before the horse can finish it. They are stored outside under a tarp so peeling off sections and feeding isn’t ideal either (though not impossible). I had been looking at getting a hay hut or hay bonnet or bale barn (all seem to have similar designs). The hay bonnet is the best price ($750 ish instead of the $1,000 price on the hay hut). Are these feeders safe?! I can’t come up with an hazards beyond mane rubbing or a pony maybe somehow getting stuck inside of one (but that’s easily remedied by flipping it over?). I am wanting to use a net with it as my current horse is a hay waster - she will pull it out just to pee on it, I know she will. But if the net poses any kind of threat I can deal without. She, and any other horse that will be on property, does not wear shoes. She does wear Cavallo hoof boots though. She has a netted, ground level feeder in her stall and outside currently (and for the past 3 years) with no issues. I hate to be “that person” asking what seems like an obvious question but I really need guidance on this.

[trubandloki]

They are horses. There is nothing in the whole world that can be described as totally risk free when it comes to horses.

[beowulf]

First, I am so sorry again to read of what happened to your mare. In your shoes I think it’s reasonable to question everything now, and totally understand why you would feel you need guidance.

I have had a Hayhut for six or seven years now, I purchased it under the guidance of another COTHer and I will never go back to any other feeder. My personal opinion is that the Hayhut is the safest group hay-feeder out there for roundbales. The herd has eaten off of it 24/7 and there are never unexplained cuts, scrapes, or bumps the way there was with the metal roundbale feeder we had before.

A horse would have to be quite slender to fit through the feeding slits of a Hayhut to get inside. My regular sized horses (15-17h) can fit their neck through the slits easily but there is not much room for anything else. My 17h horse has permanent mane rub in one spot since he is actually too tall for the Hayhut, but that is a tradeoff I’m willing to make so he can get 24/7 forage.

Another added bonus I’ve seen with the Hayhut is it really reduced the “musical chairs” aspect of one bossy horse moving another one off their haypile. They have to pull their heads out of the feeder to do so, and that is way too much effort for my boys.

I flip the hay onto a pallet. Then cover it in a Haychix hay net. Then flip the Hayhut over the roundbale. All of this can be done solo but requires physical strength; it’s easier with two people. The Hayhut reduced some waste, but it wasn’t as transformative as the Haychix net. I really wish I had made the dive for both sooner. There is almost zero waste now with the Hayhut and Haychix combined. I always thought COTHers were exaggerating when they said that – truthfully, how could there be so little waste?? But it’s true. Before, with just the Hayhut, my horses were probably wasting 30-40% of the bale. Now with the Haychix, there’s almost nothing left.

I’m considering buying my second one. The durability on these things is incredible but ours broke last winter when a certain family member was feeling lazy and tried to pick up the Hayhut with a skidsteer by the window slits instead of by the metal cable on top… He broke both windows. It was nothing a little ingenuity couldn’t temporarily band-aid but not a longterm fix.

[wsmoak]

@beowulf

when a certain family member was feeling lazy and tried to pick up the Hayhut with a skidsteer by the window slits instead of by the metal cable on top… He broke both windows.

Ugggghhhh I hate it when we can’t have nice things because someone else makes a poor decision. Follow the Approved Procedure or do NOT touch my stuff!

I have not owned a HayHut myself but have seen them in action at the trainer’s barn and there have been zero problems I’m aware of. It’s mostly QH types so not tall enough to even get mane rubs.

[tabula_rashah]

I have 2 hay huts and 5 horses in my field. The only issue I had with it was a mini- tornado type thing snatched it up during a crazy storm but that was such a freak occurrence
I’ve been really happy with them, saves me a ton of money and my horses all seem to eat out of them together with no issues

[Warmblood1]

I don’t think hay huts ventilate enough for their respiratory tracts. I’m not crazy about my horse constantly breathing in dust from the hay (etc) in a closed, confined and often hot space. I also have big horses and they would constantly be getting rubbed. I raise youngsters as well and don’t really want a horse’s head stuck in a hut if a rambunctious youngster is going to jump on them and play while they eat, especially if their vision is limited from their head in a hut. Just my personal preference. If you’re able, I would just build a simple shelter for the round bales. It’s probably cheaper as well.

[kaya842]

Trub - I know. They are never 100% safe but I could have done better so now I’m trying to do better.

Warmblood1 - do you have a style you use and like?

[Warmblood1]

You can do lots of variations. Just depends on what your preference is. A lot of people are building huts like these (I would decrease the spacing of the boards however so a foot can’t go in between):

You can still move them to different areas if the footing gets muddy.

Or any type of variation of shelter. You could have walls or just posts with a roof that extends a bit outward so it has more of an overhang.

You could probably build these for about what you’d spend on a hay hut.

I have youngsters that are rowdy and dumb so if I use a hay ring I use lightweight hay rings made of a PVC material but stronger. They weigh about 80 pounds so if a horse crashes into them or they get a leg caught, the horse can easily move the hay ring instead of the hay ring being immobile and causing injury. I use them with hay nets and have various type of shelters.

These are also good:

The hay nets keep them from wasting hay and the rings keep the horses off the round bales when the bales get smaller. They love to pee on the round bales when they are able to stand on them so the hay ring preserves the hay and keeps them off.

[trubandloki]

I have something similar to home built hut that is the first option that @Warmblood1 posted above. There is almost no gap between the boards, it has a floor that will structurally handle a horse climbing in it. I use a small hole hay net in it.

[ChocoMare]

Used a Hay Hut for 8 years without issue. Would still have it, but now that I’m on my own land, I have 2 covered areas for hay. One has a Century Round Bale Feeder, with a Hay Chix net “sewed” to the bottom, so all we have to do is put the bale on a pallet, remove the baling net and flip the RB Feeder over.

The second is a basic run-in with a galvanized steel hay cradle. We net the round bale while on the front-end-loader forks, pull out the baling net and settle the bale into the cradle, cinch it closed and flip up the end gate of the cradle.

Both methods work great for us but without the above, I’d have a Hay Hut in a heartbeat. NOTE: When we used the Hut, we used a Hay Chix Round Bale net still, placed on a heavy-duty plastic pallet. Kept it off the ground and the net resulted in 1% waste.

[endlessclimb]

@Warmblood1

They weigh about 80 pounds so if a horse crashes into them or they get a leg caught, the horse can easily move the hay ring instead of the hay ring being immobile and causing injury.

The ring might be 80#, but the hay inside it weighs a heck of a lot more than that, no? Maybe the ring would break?

[Warmblood1]

A hay ring will generally just encircle the hay (like the ones I posted) but they don’t hold the weight of the hay bale. A hay feeder will often hold the weight of the bale. Like this:

I prefer hay rings (like the ones I posted) because they are much simpler in design and have fewer design elements where a horse can get a leg caught, etc. I personally wouldn’t used the above hay feeder with my young and dumb youngsters.

The polyring type of feeders are rated for cattle and are very strong. Haven’t seen one break yet but that has a lot to do with its weight and it being maneuverable if a horse or animal fights against it.

[endlessclimb]

Right, but if the bale is in there, the ring doesn’t just slip off if the pull “vector” is at hoof height. Horse will be dragging the bale via the ring.

Unless I’m totally backwards in my thinking?

[Texarkana]

Horses can get very hurt on hay rings. Ask me how I know…

I haven’t used the solid-style poly ring in the last picture of post #8, but I’ve had injuries from the style pictured above it. Lightweight isn’t necessarily better, they just find different ways to injure themselves.

I think a hay hut is among the safer designs, but I have never owned one myself. Also, horses— I’ve certainly heard anecdotes of hay hut disasters, but they seem fewer and farther between.

I’ve been hemming and hawing about using one myself.

[beowulf]

Guys – OP lost a horse recently who got her leg stuck in a free-standing metal “cradle” feeder. There is a thread about it in Horse Care.

Not the OP but I imagine they are looking for feeding options that have no open slats or spaces where a limb can get hung up.

I was using a hay ring before the hay hut. There were definitely limb injuries from it even without any sharp edges. One of our horses always had cuts/splits around his knee and legs that at first I thought were from falling on his knee, but after observing him loose I realized when he stomped for flies, he was smacking his knee right into the metal slats. Our herd had their fair share of some weird cuts & scrapes that I’m certain came from the feeder because once we switched to the Hayhut, they disappeared.

[Warmblood1]

They have to get really hung up like a halter getting caught or something to the point that they can’t free themselves and try dragging it. Usually they might stick a leg through but they don’t get hung up. Not saying it isn’t possible for a horse to get hung up.

The most damage is done in my opinion when they get a leg through something very heavy, strong and immovable like a steel ring that won’t bend like poly and that is very heavy and creates a lot of resistance when the horse fights against it. I’ve found with the poly rings that they can bend it and move it enough to wiggle out of it. Also if a horse runs into, it will somewhat bend and also move so it won’t be like slamming into a immovable, very hard object. The solid plastic hay rings are wonderful because there is no chance of getting a leg through.

These are the safest in my opinion:

[ElementFarm]

I don’t want to derail OP’s post, but I always worry about how the horses stick their heads in to eat, which then minimizes their ability to monitor their surroundings, and a bully horse. I would think the bully would be able to sneak up behind an eating horse and take a large chunk out of them. Or at the least, scare the wimpy horse so it flies backwards to avoid the approaching bully, and either hit their heads on the way out, or just be at risk for trauma by trying to runaway quickly from a starting position with head ‘stuck’ in a small opening.

I love my herd, but some of the mares are bitchy, and that’s one of the reasons we never went with a hay hut or equivalent design.
(other reasons were: a–draft mare uses anything she can find to scratch her itchy butt or legs on, and will crack a plastic Rubbermaid trough within a few weeks. I can’t imagine spending that much for a feeder only to have her crack it into dangerous edges within a few months. and b–we prefer large squares over round bales, and wanted a feeder that would work for both, not just rounds. We ended up DIYing a feeder-with-roof w/ 2x6s and it’s holding up perfectly several years later.

[Warmblood1]

I’ve been eyeballing these but I can only find them in Australia by a company called Liberty Supplies. If anyone knows a manufacturer that sells these in the US, please let me know. They have built in hay nets as well.

[beowulf]

@ElementFarm

I don’t want to derail OP’s post, but I always worry about how the horses stick their heads in to eat, which then minimizes their ability to monitor their surroundings, and a bully horse. I would think the bully would be able to sneak up behind an eating horse and take a large chunk out of them. Or at the least, scare the wimpy horse so it flies backwards to avoid the approaching bully, and either hit their heads on the way out, or just be at risk for trauma by trying to runaway quickly from a starting position with head ‘stuck’ in a small opening.

It’s hard to see from pictures online, but if you are inside the Hayhut you have a generous range of vision and a horse can see out of every single window with his head inside. Mine do not seem to be blindsided by herdmates. The windows also cut down on the “musical chairs” aspect of eating hay, they pick a window and stick to it. They also always seem to see/hear me well before I’m at the Hayhut, so I don’t think it is muffling their senses too much. When I first bought the HH home I was actually really concerned for the same reasons you were - I had one horse who is just wimpy and everyone picks on him. He has not struggled one bit.

I have no ventilation concerns about the Hayhut; I saw that mentioned up thread. The Hayhut has eight long, narrow windows and is exceptionally well ventilated. There is no temperature difference in my Hayhut, but maybe I do not live in an area where it is extreme enough or gets hot enough during the day? Even then, I was just replacing bolts inside the Hayhut three weeks ago while it was 95F and sunny. It was actually cooler inside the Hayhut because the sun was brutal that day.

[trubandloki]

@ElementFarm

I don’t want to derail OP’s post, but I always worry about how the horses stick their heads in to eat, which then minimizes their ability to monitor their surroundings, and a bully horse.

This is why I will not use the purchased style hay hut. I guess it depends on your (general) herd dynamics. My herd has one mare that is kind of a jerk to the others at very random times. I think low horse would not even eat for worry that attack mare would be able to sneak up on her and attack her.

I think hay huts are great things for the right group of horses.

My homemade wood hay holder does not provide as much weather protection for the bale but it keeps the bale off the ground, no hoof access to the hay net and no place to get a hoof stuck (though I will not tell my horses that because they will take it as a challenge). It also gives complete visibility for everyone.

Edit to fix bad typing. Ride =/= right.