is a hay hutch worth it?

I looked at these but thought they looked like glorified compost bins with a hole cut out.

We went for the cheapo option of 5 pallets and some cable ties from poundland. So far it's worked a treat!!
 
I made similar out of wheelie bins - much much cheaper and you can wheel them to fill them :) when it's not too muddy that is!

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Love the wheelie bin ones. Would prob make holes higher for mine as field gets muddy and saves on them tramping hay into the dirt.
 
wow!!! the wheelie bins are a fantastic idea!! not sure how i could corperate them into my paddock as nothing really to attach them too.. but what an idea!! :)
 
It wasn't my idea I must add :( But such a good idea I had to make some and copy. You just need to secure the lids down and I added a little eye bracket in front to enable me to lash them securely to either a fence post or tree or shelter etc. The horses love them and the hay/haylage stays dry in the rain so much less wastage. You could just knock in a post if you have nothing in the paddock to tie them to.

Bear in mind you need the holes low so the hay drops down, else they will have their head in there trying to get to the bottom - mine always pull a little out anyway, but on the whole there is much less wasted. They hold a whole bale of hay :)
 
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In my opinion no! I've got two medium ones and the horses still pull hay out and trample it. It's possibly slightly less wastefull than ground feeding but not much! My cats love them though! :rolleyes: :D Spend the money on materials to make a feeder that does what you want.
 
I have a hay hutch! I LOVE it! Was well worth the money!
Keep the hay clean and dry, prevents wast and the large one, which I have, can fit nearly 3 small bales in so no panic of horses running out of hay when it's cold and horrid outside, only need to fill it once per day!
Also it's really light so easy to move around the field to stop areas getting poached!
Here is mine:

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I have 2 medium ones for 4 horses and they work well. It is quicker than making up hay nets and you can move them around to avoid poaching and I find there is no waste. They are a bit pricey but worth it for the time saved and less hay wastage. Only thing is one horse can get the lids off so have given up using them and if it is very windy they may blow away. We have put planks of wood in ours to stop them blowing away - we live in a windy part of Scotland.
 
Merlin11 said:
I have 2 medium ones for 4 horses and they work well. It is quicker than making up hay nets and you can move them around to avoid poaching and I find there is no waste. They are a bit pricey but worth it for the time saved and less hay wastage. Only thing is one horse can get the lids off so have given up using them and if it is very windy they may blow away. We have put planks of wood in ours to stop them blowing away - we live in a windy part of Scotland.
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That's funny, there is no way the horses could get the lid off ours, and it has never blown off in the wind!
Agreed, saves loads of time when there are no haynets to do!
 
At our livery, the horses in the other field have one and we just put a few slices tucked in the hedge and I wouldn't say there was much more wasted than the hay that is pulled onto the floor from the hay-hutch so no I'm not wasting my money!
 
I have a medium and a small for 2 ponies and I wouldn't be without mine.
It's either that or tie haynets to fence, as I'm crap at DIY and I'd be waiting forever for my OH to do it.

There is very little waste, they hold about 16kg between them, so ponies have loads and they get the lid off of the old one, as I've not put a bolt on it yet but the lid stays on the little one with the bolt on.

I did end up putting half a breeze block in each, as highland kept throwing them on their sides which scared the little horse.
 
my clever welshie knocks the lids off and rolls them onto their sides till he has got every last bit of hay! On their sides they are also more likely to blow away too. Haven't got round to trying the bolts. Prob is if i bolt the lids on it is more hassle to get the hay in. But overall I find them very useful.
 
I have the large one and I think it was extremely poor value for money. I certainly wouldn't buy another one.

I have four horses and they cannot all feed from the feeder at once, the holes are too close together and so the dominant two horses take up most of the space and the other two can't get in. IMO you could only have 6 feeding from it if they were all extremely good friends and were organised enough to stand perpendicularly to it. I still get a fair amount of waste as the haylage gets dragged out and the ground around it gets as poached as if I was feeding off the ground.

The floor of the hutch is not sloped anything like enough so you get a huge amount of hay/haylage stuck in the middle of the hutch. Yes the horses try to jam their faces through the holes to get at the 'stuck' haylage but they can't reach. (I was also delighted to find that whilst doing this my sweetitch pony discovered that it was excellent to rub her face on the edges of the holes.) I have partially solved the stuck haylage issue by putting a large upturned bucket in the middle to try and push the haylage out to the holes but it doesn't work brilliantly. Next annoyance is that the bottom rim of the feeder is a fold in the plastic so haylage gets trapped there. I guess it's not so much of a problem with hay but every couple of weeks I have to completely empty the feeder and then run a hoofpick round the fold to get out all the manky bits of haylage as they go mouldy in there. My hay hutch also split last week, a six inch split from the top rim down towards one of the holes.

For me it was a shockingly expensive mistake (it was more than £200 new :-( ). If I could sell it for anything like what I paid for it, it would be long gone.

Oh yes, before I bought the hay hatch I bought two composters for £15 each, put a raked floor in them using rubber matting and fed haylage from them. I wish I'd stuck to that plan!
 
I've used a hay hutch for three years and it works really well. The field is on a very exposed hillside in the Peak District and it gets the wind so I have put a small bag of gravel in it to weigh it down. It is the large size (can't see the point of anything smaller) and it feeds haylage to one horse and pony for 24 hours. No problem with the lid, which screws on easily. It's much better than haynets which you have to put up twice a day, they feed the horse at an unnatural height and they get wet in the rain/snow. There is some wastage because my horse tends to pull out the hay and leave some of it on the ground, but the pony seems to eat this up. I suspect there is really not much more wastage than with haynets. A hay hutch is expensive but I wouldn't be without it.
 
I remember somebody recommended these as its part of a get composting scheme so cheap prices :) http://www.leics.getcomposting.com/ The compost bin is like a wheelie bin with hole cut so ready to go :) they do it for all areas of the UK I believe, but this is the leics site. Im tempted but only put haylage out on frosty mornings and I have 4 who get some so would need a lot of compost bins :p :)
 
I use one of the composting bins for soaking my hay. They are very lightweight though, so I don't think they'd be much use in a field, also they would be knocked over by horses in no time. Sorry to be negative...but they are very good for haysteaming!!
 
I *think* the HHOer who uses one said she tied it to something like you do with the wheelie bin ones :). Same thing you just dont have to cut the hole :) Im also pretty sure there was some mention of a concrete slab in the base for stability? Was ages ago though so my memory isnt that good! Havent tried it myself. :)
 
Who was it that said they were like glorified compost bins? I did experiment with a compost bin (with a concrete block in the bottom for stability). I have to say that it had to be abandoned as my two (Welsh, say no more) poached the ground very badly and managed to push it around the field. The YO asked me to remove it.
 
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