Anyone deal with this? Any good way to handle it? Unfortunately we can’t lock up the hay and I spent a fortune on it. My feed is in trash type cans and can’t be locked up. Are there any cameras available that don’t need wifi? As much as I wish I could help everyone out, I’ve got my hands full with my own horses and can’t feed the new boarder’s too. 
I’d love to hear some thoughts or ideas!
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Have you told the BO of your suspicions?
Have any other boarders had things go missing?
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Theft is an unfortunate fact of life in self-care board settings. Sometimes you have outright intentional theft, sometimes you have “I’m short of hay, I’m just going to borrow a little” people who tell themselves they will pay you back, but somehow don’t ever quite get around to it. You must make your feed and hay inaccessible. You say you can’t, but yes, there are ways to do it. Yes, those ways are likely inconvenient or expensive or both, but you haven’t really got any other option.
There are cameras that don’t require wi-fi, you just have to manually retrieve the disk from the camera. Lots of game cameras work that way.
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IIWM & I suspected another boarder, I’d take it up with that person.
Since you mention a new boarder, allow for the possibility this person thinks hay is a community supply.
Once informed, if hay still goes missing, the only way I can see is to store your hay off-site & bring what you use daily. My PT Cruiser could hold 4 small (40-50#) squares if I dropped the back seats.
Inconvenient?
Sure, but unless you store a lot of hay & count bales daily - a headache in itself - how do you keep track, determine what’s missing?
Is there a way you could put a small, lockable storage shed onsite?
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Game or trail cameras are cheap. Less than $100. Just having one pointed at your stuff might be deterrent enough.
The wheeled haybag I have would allow me to lock the zippers. A cheap lock should work. You could buy a rubbermaid and stand up three or four bales in there and lock it.
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Get a length of chain at a hardware store, loop it around the handle on the top of the lid and then through both of the handles and then lock it - maybe a lock on each side. Then the lid can’t be removed to get into the can.
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A monitoring camera may change the whole ambience of your barn. Boarders consider their barn as their happy space, You can try to explain to every boarder that the camera is not because of them, but all of them will likely feel at some level that they are suspected and their privacy is being intruded upon.
Better to call for an all boarders meeting and publicly air out all of the concerns.
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I had this problem. New boarder told me the owner said it was okay to take my hay. I don’t remember whether I actually said this out loud, but I sure was thinking, “if I told you to go into their house and take their furniture, would that be okay?”
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I dealt with this at some self care places.
Best practice would always be to talk it out like adults… but I’m a non-confrontational person and rarely did that, especially not in my younger years. Plus, sometimes people just don’t see it as a problem.
So the more passive aggressive route: make it inconvenient to take your stuff.
Wrap your hay up in a tarp. Keep the strings tied so no one can just grab a flake or two. Store stuff on top of your hay or in front of it. Or divvy your hay up into multiple hay nets in advance.
Same goes for your feed trash cans. Make them hard to access. Hide your feed scoops. You can use a bicycle lock to lock trash cans— no, it isn’t fail proof, but it makes it inconvenient and sends a message. If you don’t want to lock it, even a bungee cord can be a deterrent.
Don’t keep more feed or hay at the barn than you absolutely need to. People are much more likely to help themselves if they see you have “plenty” than if you only have a small amount.
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Signs. Signs on everything. X’s Feed please do not use. I can only afford to feed one horse. Thanks, Y.
Tie your bales back together after opening them.
Don’t flip out right away - you may find out (as I did a few years ago) that it was an honest mistake. Once I put signs up, everything got sorted, an apology was made, and compensation given without having to request it. I hope your situation resolves as easily 
Editing to add another idea for grain. I didn’t do this for “theft” reason but rather to make my evenings go a bit quicker bit figure it would work to slow down a borrower/thief/mistaken person too. Bag your feed. When you get a new bag, bag your daily servings and label those bags with horse name and day of the week. Never leave an open bag of grain or a bin with loose grain in it.
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How much hay do you have stored, and is it pretty well separated from everyone else’s? Or is it similar to one place I boarded in that we had one big open loft and it was a bit of a free for all up there? Theft is unfortunately SO common in even full care barns - accidental and otherwise. I nameplate/tag all my gear these days as a precaution (and it helps things to wander on back if they do get borrowed).
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Talk to the owner - as a poster said above, there might be a true misunderstanding that hay is provided in board. A quick PSA by them in the group text or however people communicate might be all it takes.
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Lock up the feed bins - a giant combo lock or bike lock on one handle and a chain run through the others (so you only have to unlock the one side) should be enough. Ostensibly this keeps foraging animals out - but also foraging boarders lol
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Talk to the BO about putting signage on the hay area. If you want to be nice, get little signs for everyone, and use tape on the floor or some other way to designate divisions between each person’s “area”. Personally I’d do this anyway, it keeps honest mistakes to a minimum and also keeps that one person from taking over the entire tack room/hay loft/storage barn/etc
More than anything though, try not to start off your relationship with the new boarder or anyone by ASSuming foul intent or anything without proof. Reasonable precautions are one thing, but if passive aggressive “sticky notes” and 47 locks suddenly pop up overnight, that’s going to set the tone very poorly. Talk to the BO, and put your name on stuff as possible. That should hopefully be enough
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Do those hay bags that fit a bale have two zippers that you could lock together? No idea, but may be an option.
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I would be tempted mark my hay with eatable food dye … all that Blue Hay is Mine
also would provide a tacking of just where the blue hay ended up
I did work on zoo enclosures for elephants/hippos we had to remove all the hydraulic fuel used in the gate operators and replace with food grade fuels
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Do you have a trailer? I store our personal hay in our trailer which could be locked if we needed to.
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I dealt with this at a self care farm too. Unless the BO is willing to also step in, you may be dealing with someone who has made a living off of professionally siphoning other people’s hay. First - make sure it is actually happening. I’m sure it is, but you need proof so that when you address this with the thief, you have veritable evidence.
While cameras are a good deterrent, you’d need the BO’s permission. The best thing to do is to find a way to lock all the food down, and address the person that you know is helping themselves to your horse’s food by letting them know you’re aware of their behavior.
It does not have to be confrontational. “Hey, Susie, I noticed you have been feeding your horse’s with my grain/hay/etc. My grain should only be used for my horse. I’ve alerted the BO to this and would appreciate this stopping immediately. If you like the grain, here is the store’s number I buy it from.”
Good luck. It can be very thrifty in these situations. I don’t miss it. I was not able to get my thief to stop borrowing - but I did cut down on it some by addressing him over it while he was in the middle of a lesson. 
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How does one then use their trailer?
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Lots of great ideas in this thread.
To answer the question, though it has already been said, there are lots of options and price ranges for Game Cameras that do not use Wifi. They are motion activated. They even offer no light photos.
It is hard for me to imagine that someone came to a self care barn and did not know they were required to provide their own hay/grain products. I am all for giving people a chance, but that seems like a huge leap.
I would start by talking to the barn owner. Then move forward with how the barn owner wants it handled. I do think it makes sense in these types of arrangements to always leave your hay and grain in a way that is least likely to be gotten into by someone else. If you feed in hay bags, the expense of owning extra bags, enough to make a whole bale into hay bags, is likely worth it. If you feed loose flakes, like others have mentioned, simply retying your bale is likely to discourage most people.
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I use trail cams to keep track of 1) my feral cats 2) my new horse’s activity in the shed he shares with a pasture buddy. Mine uses memory cards --pop in, pop out. When you have time, look at images using a memory card reader. Clear card; reuse --unless you want to save pix of Raccoon Porn (they have no shame and perform in front of the camera) --Possum wars —weird --they are always beating on each other; or crow visits. Had an owl one time too landing on something --might have been a mouse. Anyway, Big signs: CAMERA IN USE and maybe do a mailing to other boarders that you are installing cameras (or BO is) might solve the problem --FYI you can buy fake cameras on Amazon for less than $10 --maybe put up one real one and a bunch of fake ones.
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I think there are a few types of “sticky fingers” people you find in barns:
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The clueless-- I think this is probably the most common. New person doesn’t understand who owns what. These types can easily be addressed and reformed.
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The borrower-- Truly doesn’t think they are stealing because they have full intentions of replenishing your stash (at least in the moment). Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. Often these folks are terrible at planning ahead-- “I totally forgot I used my last bale of hay yesterday!”
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The friendship exploiter-- “Susie won’t mind if I use her stuff, we’re friends.” Often justified with excuses like, “well I helped her load up for that show last week, so she won’t mind if I use a little of her feed.”
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The person in continuous crisis-- “My truck broke down, my dog died, my horse is injured, and I just learned I have a terminal disease, so excuse me if I use your fly spray today!” (and tomorrow, and the next day, etc.)
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The barn owner-- they figure since it’s their barn and they are letting you board there, they have right to your belongings. Also, components of 2, 3, and 4 may all factor in.
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The actual thief-- usually the least common problem.
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Haha good point. I don’t store a large amount so some can stay in the trailer (We take several bales to shows with us anyways) and the rest I move out to my horses stall while the horse in away. Food can stay in the dressing room and doesnt need to be moved.
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