hay soaking minimal physical effort options

[ester]

Suggesting my Mum soaks hay is going to go down like a lead balloon but we might need to from a diet point of view (I'm suggesting we should think about it )

on the yard we had a nice bath + pulley set up which worked well but I know there are now at least some hay feeders that you can soak in and and drain and wheel into stable. I know of the haycube are there others? how good are they? home made options?

 

[YorksG]

If it's for dieting reasons, to save your mum the backbreaking cold horrid job, could you use chopped straw (e.g honeychop) in a trug, as well as a reduced hay intake? worked well for one of ours who came to us hugely overweight.

 

[PapaverFollis]

Yard I once worked at had hay bale sized metal tub with plug holes in attached on a trolley. It had a metal sheet lid with handles to lift it on and some weights to hold it down.

Bale in tub. Wheel trolley under tap. Put lid on (enough gap round lid to let water through. Weigh down. Fill with water. Leave to soak and compress for however long by an hour did it. Wheel to drainage area. Pull plug. Let drain. Remove weights and lid. Serve hay loose. If you used nets the weighing down means that more water is squeezed out before you have to lift the net too. But there is the physical effort of lifting the weights on and off. The whole thing being on wheels meant that you could wheel to directly outside stable and just toss hay in.

 

[tallyho!]

The one good thing that has come out of hay soaking research, is that you only need to soak for 20 mins to leach sugar - the minerals can take a bit longer which is good because you actually need those. Plus, you don't want to soak for too long as you can encourage fungus to grow (Do google there are loads of results online)

https://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/horse/nutrition/hay-soaking/

It is a faff no matter how much money you throw at it on soaking gadgets, but you can make it easier really cheaply. All you need is a sack truck to drain it on (you can fit loads on), wheel it in the stable and put in manger/hang.

 

[ester]

YorksG, given he has tested as negative for PPID we've agreed we need to treat him as metabolic- he is ribby (not awfully so but showing) but has a crest come again (it disappeared all summer after appearing last april). We don't have a consistent source of hay this year for it to be worth testing at this point. He is very fussy and I suspect he wouldn't touch a straw chop as wouldn't consider it worth the effor (he has been leaving some of his agrobs aspero recently so he has been switched to the soaked meadow cobs) and to a certain extent I'm not sure I'd want to drop his nutrition too much if that makes sense. ATM he has been getting adlib unnetted hay due to recent teeth/jaw issues. (Essentially it is just getting his managment as good as we can for as long as he goes for )

Essentially I know how my mum works, we don't necessarily have to do it right now but it's best to plant the seeds when you first think about it so she can ponder so I have mentioned it while saying if the neighbour wants to throw them stuff in the morning can she take something more suitable round than what he currently gives them .

I guess one other consideration is quantity, we are on a meter so don't want to use any more water than necessary. So would need something about half bale size tops.

 

[ester]

The one good thing that has come out of hay soaking research, is that you only need to soak for 20 mins to leach sugar - the minerals can take a bit longer which is good because you actually need those. Plus, you don't want to soak for too long as you can encourage fungus to grow (Do google there are loads of results online)

https://www.extension.umn.edu/agriculture/horse/nutrition/hay-soaking/

It is a faff no matter how much money you throw at it on soaking gadgets, but you can make it easier really cheaply. All you need is a sack truck to drain it on (you can fit loads on), wheel it in the stable and put in manger/hang.

do you just stack it on the sack truck then tallyho? in nets or just as sections. We have small bales at the moment but often have big squares or rounds depending on availability so that gets netted but otherwise he just gets sections chucked in.

Ps thanks, I thought it was less time than was previously thought!

 

[Clodagh]

Didn't I once see a pic of a green wheelie bin with a tap at the bottom? Fill from top - open tap - wheel to stable.

Like this... (First image on google)
https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/2921742364...=9044921&device=c&campaignid=974199509&crdt=0

 

[Tiddlypom]

Easy hay soak methods used over 30+ years . No need to lug heavy waterlogged hay at any point (I have a fooked up back).

1. Soak hay in a black plastic rubbish bin 80L+. Tip bin over and then invert to drain for a few mins, hay will be be drained and easy to handle.

2. Soak hay in a water butt with a tap at the bottom. Allow water to drain out fully then tip hay out, hay will be drained and easy to handle.

 

[Fjord]

I use a cut down water butt and let the water drain from the tap before lifting the net out. It's still a faff but could be worse!

 

[MyBoyChe]

Ive got a plastic water trough in one of those garden mesh trolleys on wheels, drilled a hole through bottom of trough and fitted a water butt tap. Dunk haynet in, when soaked open tap and drain. I have it parked close to a gate so I can winch the haynet out by using the top bar of the gate. Primitive, but it works. I can also wheel the trolley to the stable if Im feeling weak and pathetic

 

[milliepops]

I tried cheaper options but am glad I went for a hay cube in the end. It's just easy, I like being able to feed from it and it's well designed with a big drainage hole that doesn't bung up with hay seeds etc. No strain on the back. Good size for ad lib overnight and the newer ones have bigger wheels and a taller handle.
It survived Millie climbing all over it for years and now salty shoves it around

 

[Nasicus]

Easy hay soak methods used over 30+ years . No need to lug heavy waterlogged hay at any point (I have a fooked up back).

1. Soak hay in a black plastic rubbish bin 80L+. Tip bin over and then invert to drain for a few mins, hay will be be drained and easy to handle.

2. Soak hay in a water butt with a tap at the bottom. Allow water to drain out fully then tip hay out, hay will be drained and easy to handle.

Bolded is what I used when I needed to soak my mares hay. Made soaking much easier as I could just tip it on it's side, leave it to drain, then tip it completely upside-down to drain the rest, and stand it back up. I would then scoot the entire container into the stable and have her eat straight from it and she got through it pretty quickly, but I reckon if you had the time to net it instead then it would last longer.

 

[ester]

milliepops it's just as helpful to know someone has one and it works! The cost isn't really an issue if it is something that works well, mum has a lot of trouble with sciatica so doesn't take much to add up to extra physio visits... I bought a hoof jack for the same reason!

He has been dunking his hay since the 'tooth' episode anyway.

 

[Nari]

I use a water butt. I leave it a while after the tap has been opened and find that way the hay isn't too bad to lift out. I also don't soak more than a slice in a net which makes handling after soaking much easier.

 

[milliepops]

milliepops it's just as helpful to know someone has one and it works! The cost isn't really an issue if it is something that works well, mum has a lot of trouble with sciatica so doesn't take much to add up to extra physio visits... I bought a hoof jack for the same reason!

He has been dunking his hay since the 'tooth' episode anyway.

Salty dunks hers if I don't wet it
I found smaller taps got clogged up or took ages to drain by comparison. If I had a bit of spare money I'd buy another for kira.

 

[ester]

he had taken occasionally to chucking the whole net in his water bucket. He has intermittently had it soaked at livery as would occasionally cough but never coughed at home.
After all we're not paying for the pergolide I anticipated .
I think my email to the vet went so, as I am very surprised I am wrong .

 

[Leo Walker]

A wheelie bin with a tap at the bottom would be really easy to do and especially easy to move about. Mine gets his hay in a wheelie bin for that exact reason, I just wheel the bin to the hay store, fill, then wheel it to the stable. I've cut a hole in the side at the bottom which wouldnt work for soaking, and being the same size as mine he wont be able to reach all the way to the bottom, so you would need to either put a bucket in to raise the hay up or have it tipped out on the floor/haybar etc. I found normal bins werent strong enough and the plastic was brittle, although I've just got a blue barrel and that would work if you cut it down.

Or just bite the bullet and get a hay cube.

 

[ester]

this might sound silly but when I thought about a haybar or similar we decided not to in case he bashes his head on it by mistake as we have a query that he might have arthritis in his jaw that he had aggrevated rather than it being is teeth. - that means he also gets out of being muzzled this year . So if he has anything to eat out of I will need to take that into consideration

#fartoopreciouscob

 

[Fruitcake]

I use the really huge tub trugs. They take about three slices each. Fill with water whilst weighing down with big brick, tip on their sides and then completely upside down to completely drain by which point it’s really light and easy to carry in the trug to wherever it’s needed.

 

[ester]

I genuinely think she would struggle tipping it on it's side, I have done that/we have large trugs for water which need to get changed quite regularly now but tipping them really upsets my back. Which is ridiculous given what I can lift in the gym!

 

[poiuytrewq]

I bought a haycube last winter to try out and bought another this winter. I love them.
They are super easy to fill, drain and feed. I do find it best to tip it back for the final bit of draining as the plug is a bit too high. There are more drainage holes in the handle though so this works well.

 

[Meredith]

We once had a fixed bin with a draining tap at it’s bottom fitted to a pipe which drained to the outside of the stable. The bin was filled by a hose run through the kicking boards operated by a tap outside the stable. Bin is filled with water previously, hay put in at the appropriate time and emptying tap opened when horse came home in for the night. Make sure the waste water goes somewhere safe.

I am lucky my OH designs and builds things like this for me.

 

[Tiddlypom]

I find the black bins quite easy to tip over. Maybe because they're tall on a narrow base cf trugs, and made of a more rigid plastic?

 

[nikicb]

When I used to soak hay for my lot, I found a water butt was the best thing as it already has a tap installed. I didn't find the tap got blocked. What I did do though was turn a large metal hanging basket upside down and put it in the bottom of the water butt. This meant that the haynet drained well and was much lighter to lift out. The positioning of water butt is key as the water that drains out is pretty rank and you also have to make sure it doesn't run into a stream etc. x

 

[ester]

no streams our actual water butt would seem quite high to lift out of but I guess it is also on a stand.

 

[nikicb]

no streams our actual water butt would seem quite high to lift out of but I guess it is also on a stand.

The stand actually helps with the drainage as the taps are right at the bottom and it helps to have them slightly higher off the ground so the water runs away better. If she gets herself into a routine and makes sure the haynet drains well before she has to lift it than it really isn't that heavy. Or perhaps two smaller haynets soaked at the same time? A pulley system? As you know I'm not that tall, but I managed ok. xx

 

[cobsarefab]

I use a wheelie bin to soak cobbus' hay and it's really good.

 

[Ahrena]

I have a wheelie bin. Drill a hole in the bottom, stuff it with s cork. Put hay in, fill with water, drain, wheel into stable, dump into haybar.

Easy as pie

 

[Sussexbythesea]

I use a large tub trug located near the hose. When finished soaking tip over and let haynet drain for a bit whilst doing jobs. Then wheelbarrow to stable hang on a low hook outside to drain further during day. Hang up at night. Probably not the most efficient but it works ok for me.

 

[Myloubylou]

Another vote for haycube though I’d say depends if your yard is concreted as heavy when full. I don’t soak at the moment, I actually have haynet inside clipped to the handle in case she pulls it out. Works well to slow her eating, takes a 8kg haynet with a bit of squeezing in.