Round bale feeders

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MagicMelon

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Right, I've been looking into this for months and now its coming back into winter I really need to go and buy two round bale feeders for the fields. I'm sure I could get second hand metal ones from nearby farmers but I know they're not ideal for horses (and one horse is particularly stupid with his front legs!). I also think they'd be too heavy to move about which I plan to do to stop the field getting too poached in one place. I love the idea of a haybell which keeps it dry and minimises waste but two of those would be £700 which IMO is rather expensive. Is there anything sort of similar but cheaper? otherwise I know you can get solid plastic tombstone type ones to hold the bale in place. It doesn't matter if the hay gets a bit wet I guess since they get through it so quick anyway but I just want to minimise waste. Last winter I put the bales on a pallet (which I plan to continue to do so its off the ground) then had one of those huge haynets over the top but the horses kept pulling the bale over :(

Please let me know what you use for your round bales and ideally rough costs as I don't want to spend a silly amount.
 
i take ad lib amounts in to the field in a builders bag once or twice, if needed each day. I don't want to risk injury from a feeder, and the haybells I've seen have sharp edges.
 
They are not actually that heavy. I have a huge cattle feeder and I tip one end up and then roll it when I need it! I think it's the best investment I made. Stops so much waste but if your really not keen. Some people use hay nets around the field. I have seen those huge bins with a hole cut out at the bottom, A tractor tire. a smaller sheep metal hay feeder... I had one of them as well much easier to move.
 
Yeah, I can't easily use haynets - one field doesn't really have anywhere suitable to tie one up high enough to be safe and the horse eats so much hay its very labour intensive. It's also handy to have the round bales in the field for times like when I go on holiday soon so I dont have to get who is doing them to mess about filling loads of haynets (and then trusting they tie them safely). I can't just put it out loose in the field in handfuls as we live on top of a hill so its generally always windy.

Anna2015, is yours a tombstone type cattle feeder one? Do you put anything underneath the bale to sit on so its up out of the wet mud?
 
You can get Big Bale haynets. I would go for a tractor tyre with a bale in a haynet on top. Although, just a thought, what happens to the haynet as the hay gets eaten? I was looking on Ebay and saw pictures of them - worth investigating?
 
I would love one of those plastic tombstone style feeders but haven't been able to find them anywhere in uk, only in usa - have you seen them somewhere? I currenlty use the big bale tarpaulin type feeder but wouldn't recommend it as doesn't seem to reduce waste.
 
Please dont use a cattle feeder! My mare caught her head in one, and slashed her jaw open. I had voiced my concern that they were dangerous, but was assured that she would have to be pretty stupid to catch her head in it. So there you go, she's stupid, and I learned a hard lesson.
I now feed loose hay in the field, either a big bale in a pallet, or builders bags every day.
 
I use a big bale buddy inside a sheep ring feeder. The bale buddy is good until there's not a lot left then they can start dragging about and digging out the bits that they may not fancy at that moment. The ring feeder prevents that. I do think it prevents a lot of waste, nothing is perfect tho, when feeding adlib!

It doesn't need to be kept dry unless it's going to be lying out for over a month. They eat the exposed bits first.
 
Get two large old tractor tyres for free from a farmer. Saw out the metal rim inside, for safety. Bolt the one to a pallet with 4 coach bolts, and bolt the second one on top of the first with 4 more coach bolts. You'd need a tractor to shift it, though.
 
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