With my mare at a new place with a smaller area to roam I want to make her pen as palatable as possible. I want her entertained with toys and lots of time to eat her food. I've search online for slow feeder for hay. There are many nets and these are fine but I wanted to also have her in a more natural grazing position if possible. I was worried with having nets lower to the ground and her potentially getting caught up in it.
I found an idea online that used tubing and metal grates to make a slow feeder out of a galvanized trough. Since I read that horses teeth can wear more trying to grasp hay through the metal I wanted to use either wood or plastic and found a site that used the privacy lattice for their slow feeder. It looked great! While looking at the lattice Steve and I decide the vinyl one would be safest. It did not have little staples in it and the plastic could be cleaned easier as well.
Steve went to work with nuts, bolts, eyelets and chain to hold the lattice in place. On one end we use a carabiner to be able to open the feeder to put hay in the trough. It was really easy to drill the holes and get locking nuts to hold the eyelets in place. There is nothing sharp on the chains or the lattice, we made sure to file the cut edges.
The lattice easily moves down as the hay level decreases and it gives Dani a little longer time to eat since she has to work the hay out of the holes. The holes are about 3 inches. I might end up finding a smaller lattice at some point because my mare seems to be pretty inept at getting the hay in big mouthfuls but it's still smaller mouthfuls than without.
I really want her to have hay available at all times and hope that this unit will help. Below is a video of Dani figuring out how the feeder works. It was raining pretty hard outside so that's what the noise was. We need the rain so I don't mind not being able to ride! Sorry I wasn't able to attach the video below but here is the link. Not sure why my youtube videos were not being found by blogger.
12 comments:
I've been thinking about making a slow feeder for my boys. I love your design and just might have to try it myself :-)
i've been waiting for you to post this! wow. i have to try this. with ...oh boy...what is available in germany. *sigh* but i will!
Wondering...how much/how long to eat the same amount as before? Love this simple, efficient design. Did it last? Did u switch to smaller lattice?
Thank you so much for posting this! I've been trying to figure out how to provide hay all day to my mares, especially during winter. You know how hard that is in CO, right!? Yikes. Especially when these ladies can mow down a pasture in no time.
Are you Still using the lattice slow feeder’s? I’m in Michigan and wondering if the lattice holds up in the cold weather? Does it crack overtime? Did u secure trough so they wouldn’t tip it? Our horses knock ours over.
To allow bigger margin for right hand side to leave some space beyond axis label, we can control "right.padding" in the first graph.chain link fence supplies
This is a great design for a feeder, I've been looking for them online and they are so darn expensive I decided to look for do-it-yourself options and this is exactly what I was looking for. Your idea is fantastic!
This is a great design for a feeder, I've been looking for them online and they are so darn expensive I decided to look for do-it-yourself options and this is exactly what I was looking for. Your idea is fantastic!
I LOVED this design! I made my own! Mine was out of a 35 gal Brute trash can. I had two modifications. 1) I made is the "bottom eyelet" is on the side of the can. This allows me to have more space for hay. 2) because I did not have width, my horse would rotate the lattice. So I added two more chains/ eyelets. So one at noon, one at 3, 6, and 9. If I did it again, I would probably use the 45/55 gallon can.
Also, if you are looking for more of the "hay ball" use a 18 gallon toe with this style. My horse would roll it around!
Do you have issues with her getting the lattice out of the trough?
Did the same thing with a triangular shaped wooden stall feeder but even with tie downs he flips it up to eat under it...how do you keep them from doing this???
Post a Comment