Slow hay feeders anyone?

[Tinypony]

These have saved me so much hay this year. I put the first version together a couple of years ago, but this is the best so far.

I have pond netting fixed on the blue pipe hoops. The hoops have rigid pipe and superglue inside the join and have been fused together with some sort of shrink wrap stuff.

As before, lots and lots of bungee cord, carefully knotted with knots that I don't think will come apart, they haven't so far.

Holes drilled in the side of the feeders so that I could feed strong cable ties through and anchor the cord on the outside, below the loops, so that they are easily to hand and I'm not fumbling for them in the mud.

Oh, and two bungees don't have clips because they are the ones that stay done up when I flip the lid up and over.

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And a muddy little old man demonstrating.

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[Tinypony]

Anyone else got useful ideas maybe?

 

[MerrySherryRider]

That's very clever. I need to do something similar for the hay bar in my stables to stop one of them from chucking the hay all over the stable. I think she sees it as a form of entertainment.

 

[WelshRuby]

I like your idea - thank you for posting.

 

[Lotty]

Great idea! I don't feed hay in the field, I use the Trickle Net for the stable

 

[Fides]

How do you get the mesh to stay on top and not come up when they pull at it?

 

[flirtygerty]

Would that work for a ring feeder in the field, my four chuck hay around for fun, they go through a round bale every three days, ish

 

[Tinypony]

How do you get the mesh to stay on top and not come up when they pull at it?

The bungee cord goes down through the mesh at the side of the ring on top of the hay, through a hole in the bottom of the tub, up the outside and is knotted into a loop. At the other end, the bungee comes out over the top of the feeder, has a clip on the end that I clip on to the loop. Does that make sense? So as they eat through the pond netting (which is the same as the stuff hay nets are made of) they are pushing the "lid" down towards the bottom of the barrel. They do wangle a bit of hay out around the side of the lid, but there's nothing like the wasted you get if the hay is just in an open top container.

I think it might be a bit difficult to make this work for a round bale ring feeder. The "lid" would be quite heavy and difficult to handle.

I got the idea from looking at videos of slow hay feeders on You Tube. They were quite fiddly to put together, but well worth the hassle.

 

[Tinypony]

I'll just bring this up for people to see the answers. Then let it sink forever.

 

[Fides]

Don't let it sink it's a great idea !!

 

[Tinypony]

Don't let it sink it's a great idea !!

Well, thank you, but they may be a bit fiddly and time consuming for many. I'm thinking they would be good fixed to posts on hardstanding, possibly smaller ones in the corner of shelters and stables as well. I have some that are about 50% volume of these.