Feeding hay in the field

[zenasman]

Does anyone have experience of the Hay Hutch? It's a sort of upturned bin with aperture at ground level that you a can use to feed hay or haylage to horses in a paddock. It looks a good idea as the horses can graze normally and don't have to pull hay out of a net. john.benest@tesco.net

 

[posie_honey]

i just check a load of hay on the ground daily

can't be doing with lugging it about so the surrounding area doesn;t get muddy! at least taking it in daily the ground is saved

 

[TGM]

Sounds like an unneccessary expense to me! I just put a couple of piles on the ground and it works very well for my horses!

 

[pennyh]

i use a sheep feeder , about £80 from the agri merchant ,heacy duty , weatherproof & stops the hay getting alover the field & big enough for 3 horses to share without fighting

 

[Enfys]

Good idea. I could never use it though, my horses wouldn't tolerate feeding that close to each other. Boss horses would just hog the whole thing. I'd need about three just for one herd. I'll stick to my homemade wooden feeders, even if they are hard and the poor horsies might kick them and hurt their legsy wegsies! (Sorry, fed up with people poo-pooing everything on the grounds that apparently horses are stupid like that

) I am also too tight to pay that much for something when it amounts to the approximate value of over 50 bales of hay.

I imagine it would work fine for single horses or groups that shared happily though.

I did read the blurb (OK, skimmed)but didn't see any mention of what happens to that last bit of hay left at the end, is there a slant in the base or are you going to get some greedy pony going down on its' knees and sticking its' head in for the last strand?

 

[hussar]

I bought a HayHutch last winter and think it's one of the best purchases I've made! My 2 horses and donkey winter out, and the hutch has reduced hay wastage considerably, plus the hay stays dry, and you can move the hutch around to reduce poaching.

I was a bit worried about heads being stuck in the apertures, but in fact there seems to be little risk of that. I put an empty supplement tub filled with bricks in the middle of the hutch so that the hay was pushed more to the outside, and also it made the hutch less likely to move around if used as a rubbing post.

 

[soulfull]

I'm another that just puts piles out, one more thatn the number of horses and well spaced out

 

[Faithkat]

I use a couple of those big wooden things that building materials come in (like four pallets in a square and a fifth for a floor. They are brilliant and you don't waste any hay. I found that I wasted huge amounts putting hay on the ground as they just HAVE to pee and poo on it and if it is muddy, loads gets trodden in. The wooden hay feeders can be moved quite easily as they aren't ridiculously heavy

 

[lilym]

[ QUOTE ]
I use a couple of those big wooden things that building materials come in (like four pallets in a square and a fifth for a floor. They are brilliant and you don't waste any hay. I found that I wasted huge amounts putting hay on the ground as they just HAVE to pee and poo on it and if it is muddy, loads gets trodden in. The wooden hay feeders can be moved quite easily as they aren't ridiculously heavy

[/ QUOTE ]

same here!! I managed to aquire a plastic box pallet that works in the same way! our feilds are very exposed and gale force winds can blow the hay away before thay can eat it.