How do you feed your hay?

newforest

Well-Known Member
Mar 15, 2008
31,420
16,557
113
Question in the title.
Inspired from my diary post.

We have always been on the floor. There are as always pros and cons of this option. We are now to be racks, again pros and cons for this to. Isn't there always.
 
Last edited:
Nets, although I'd rather not. Jack is a total diva with hay so once it touches the floor it is inedible :rolleyes: He's not very food-driven anyway, more so on the Prascend, so I'm afraid I take the most enticing option.

Gracie has smaller holes than Jack to slow her down, because she is like an industrial Dyson and can pack away a standard-holed haynet in as little as an hour, if she so fancies.....
 
In very small holed nets. Much as I'd prefer to feed off the floor it wouldn't work for Little Un because he'd be left with nothing for far too long :( . Also it means that I can put tubs under the nets to catch the drips & any hay he drops so cutting down how much wet hay gets dragged through my shavings bed.
 
My 4 ponies live out with a small barn (no door) for shelter. Our grazing is poor. For most of the year we put hay in “mangers” made from floats used in mussel lines, cut in half. There are 2 outside and 1 in the barn. We do not feed on the floor of the barn as the area is shared with chickens. We have enough trouble with hens making nests and laying eggs in the mangers as it is! We may occasionally add a haynet or two when the wind is in the wrong direction for the hay to stay in the mangers!
In summer, when the ponies are out in the other fields - ie no barn - we provide a round bale placed on a pallet, and fenced in on 3 sides, with a net over the top.
 
Inside currently I have pallet boxes (feeding height is about 8" off the ground) and they get half loose and half in tiny holed nets so it lasts.
Outside I have nets and the IBC cage, I prefer them to eat off the ground as it lasts them longer that way as I can spread it out better but we have to watch sand ingestion so I only do it when there's a good covering of grass to put it on.
 
Nets on our yard for horses that are in. Some have top ups on the floor if they are tidy and don't waste it. Those that eat too quickly or drag it into their bed get nets all the way - YO is not a stingy feeder and they all have ad lib hay (in various size holed nets according to need) but she hates waste.

In the fields there are now round bales in round feeders to supplement the grass, although there is a proper autumn flush going on at the moment.
 
On the ground. I only tie up a hay net for the trimmer or similar. Not that the trimmer eats hay but the boys like to while he does them!

I sometimes use a hay net in the field as a hay ball, tied up tight with the long string woven in. It keeps the hay tidier and takes them longer to eat but i am lazy and don't usually bother.
 
I feed Harvey from the floor in Summer when he is in during the day, but in Winter he has to have a net or he spreads his hay everywhere and treads it into his bed. In a previous stable he had a hay rack which worked well.
 
on the floor if in the field when they get it , if they have to be stabled then we have haybars but we also have the small hole haynets for soak/stop bolting should we need them for Charlie due to lammi risk.

We try to feed 2 yr old hay, bulk rather than quality and only put it down when the weather is really bad for the girls, the boys are getting a flap a day each now due to restricted grazing but that will stop hopefully at the end of the month when the girls move fields and the boys move onto the winter field the girls will be moving off. Last year we used less than 10 Bales all winter due to it being so mild, will see how it pans out this year.
 
Nets hung up around the yard in the depths of winter when it is too soggy and boggy for field time. At night everyone is fed hay / hayledge from the floor. Chloe seems to be tidy and thrifty and gobbles up neatly as does Zi, though he free ranges 24/7 and can take it or leave it. Storm is messy! She drags it into her nice bed. Nets don't work as she simply pulls it all out and then paws it all over her bed. I have watched her do this! She nibbles very little from the net but loves to pull great clods out and hurl them.
Tried something like a haybar and she does just the same pulling it out and flinging. So I just feed her from the floor and what she eats she eats and what she doesn't gets cleared away every morning into the barrow.
 
Feed on the floor in the field. I spread it into several piles. That way they move about and also eat it better. If it's in one pile they tend to pore it which makes it dirty so they then don't eat it.
 
I use very small holed nets hung low. I would prefer off the floor but they just make too much waste. I still put one wee pile in the corner for Rummy along with his nets as I worry its too much hard work for him to get it out of the nets so he gets both :oops: He sometimes pooh's in his wee pile of hay :rolleyes:
 
Ours are not getting hay yet. We haven't yet moved fields.
Is anyone feeding yet?

I never feed hay in the fields here. At night of course they are getting hay - Zi gets a bit less cos he can still free range.
I suppose the time will come at some point when I'm hanging nets up on the yard for part of the day, specially if this awful boggyness doesn't dry up. Last winter was so much less wet.
 
Sox gets his in a haybar or large holed haynets as much as he wants. In the field sox has a hay box . Ginger has the red and black haynet and small holed nets if not he would hoover it up!
 
Well after what I said about Rummy sometimes pooping in his hay if I put it on the floor, look what he left for me to clean up this morning :rolleyes: 2 nice little piles of poop :p:Drps20171022_120359.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: Trewsers
newrider.com