Your experience (if any) with slow hay feeders?

[targetsmom]

I had no experience with slow hay feeders until a bit over a month ago and now I am all for them!! I bought one (and then a second one of a different type) for Max who is recovering from very bad ulcers along with colic surgery. I think they are a key reason for the improvement I see. Both of my nets have the 1.5 inch square openings: one has then on one side only and the other has them on both sides.

My experience:

With the larger type of net, I actually fold it in half and hang it against the stall divider, keeping hay in it at all times. I notice that Max NEVER empties it completely, even overnight. But on those recent below zero mornings I would find him contentedly munching hay while everyone else seemed frantic to get fed. Some nights he eats a lot of hay and some nights it looks like he barely touches it.

The two sided net I fill each morning and hang on the fence he shares with his younger brother Rusty. This way they can both munch on the hay and have company eating. This was especially helpful last week when I suddenly removed the filly that was in with Rusty after realizing I was pushing my luck keeping them together. He still has access to the hay net in his stall but he much prefers eating outside.

What I see is much less wasted hay, very happy horses, and I do NOT seem to be feeding them more hay. This is so much more like the way horses were intended to eat!! IF (huge if) we are able to show Max this year, I can assure you he will not be going anywhere without his slow feeder!

I am sure there are many other uses for these hay nets and I would love to hear your stories, especially if anyone uses them for their show horses.

 

[LAminiatures]

I bought busy snackers for all my horses last year. I was very pleased that they all liked them and they wear like iron. My stallion is a stall walker and it keeps him busy longer. I like them best when they are in the barn due to bad weather as they don't get bored as quickly.

I have also caught them flinging them around like a toy. I think they are a great product.

 

[Nancy]

We don't use them but, others have told me they had horse get a leg hung up in them, perhaps they just needed to hang the hay nets higher.

 

[targetsmom]

I had a mini get a leg hung up in a regular hay NET, but that is not what these are. With 1.5 in square openings that cannot expand, I don't see how a horse could get a foot caught. Now maybe they could get hung up in whatever is used to hang the feeder, but I hang mine fairly high. The stall one is hung so he eats at shoulder/neck height. Interestingly, Max used to paw very aggressively from the ulcer pain, but since he has had the slow feeders and has improved, I don't see him paw at all.

Of course, we also know that if there is a will, there is a way.... But I think these are MUCH safer than regular hay nets.

 

[Sixstardanes]

We love the Snacker we have here.

I actually made 2 from the one which works great with Saber as now its just the right size for his before bed haying.

The other one we've taken full of hay with Saber to munch on should we be away from home during dinner time.

Very durable!

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

I don't have busy snackers altho I would love some and hope to purchase a few this year. What I do have is feeders we built out of store racking. They rack is a steel grid (made with round steel) with opening about 1" x 3" and I have one for a stallion who is to dominant to live with company and another for a pair of geldings who fight excess weight all the time. They are pretty simple in design, fastened along the bottom against a wall with rubber straps to hook the top closed after they are filled. I keep the stallion's feeder full and he picks his hay from it at random all day long and seems much more content and hasn't packed on pounds nor required more feed than I would expect. The geldings' hay lasts for several hours fed this way rather than the 1/2 hour or so it took to be eaten in the past but even better than that, they have lost weight since I have been feeding in this feeder, without spending more than an hour or two without hay to munch. That weight loss is in spite of being given more than double their normal ration while the temps were in the - 20s here. In all it has been an experiment that I've been very pleased with and I will be working out a way to go the slow feeder route for all the others too. My only complaint is my feeders require the horses to eat at shoulder height and I am convinced they would be better off eating at ground level.

 

[RhineStone]

My only complaint is my feeders require the horses to eat at shoulder height and I am convinced they would be better off eating at ground level.

I have a Busy Snacker and my show gelding figured out how to eat off the ground with it! I used a double end snap and a screw eye bolt in a post. The first few mornings I would find it on the floor of the stall empty. I finally hung around in the barn long enough to figure out what he was doing. He would bump it with his head until it came off. I don't know how that snap released, but it did. Then he would put his foot on it and pull out the hay. So I used a different snap, but same thing.

Now I have one of those oval link connectors. It is a pain to hang up, but when I go out to the barn in the morning, it is still up!

Our horses are fed in a group, so I don't use it all the time, but I especially use it if I have to keep one in. I really like mine at shows to keep horses occupied in the stall for days. One of my fellow competitors even had to ask where I got it.

 

[drivin*me*buggy]

We have Busy Snackers and LOVE THEM. They def. keep the horses occupied longer. and yup, my Buck plays with his-flipping it up on his head and walking under it. They wear like iron. I use them every day, hung up about eye height. I also give a handful of hay on the ground. We entered the Busy Horse photo contest and Buck and Wish won! We got a free Busy Snacker as a prize

And they will be on their brochures and web page.

Angie

 

[My2Minis]

I have the bigger Busy Horse (the one that holds a whole flake) for my pony, and it has really slowed her down. She used to Hoover up her hay and now has an epic battle with the hay bag instead. It really does look like a battle- she grabs hay, it swings back, hits the wall and she goes at it again.

 

[maplegum]

I bring my fatties in from the back field each late afternoon and keep them close to the house overnight. I often fill up their hay nets with the smaller holes in them. Takes them ages to eat through all the hay and I feel good knowing that they have something to 'work on'. I just raced out and took these photos of the fatties working away at the nets.

It helps to slow their eating down which is good for many reasons with Bailey and Willow. Bailey is a tank and I need to watch his weight constantly. Willow on the other hand is a more healthy weight but she rushes her food, she eats as if it's her last meal. This slows both of them down and gives the desired results.

 

[gatorbait4sure]

I've used the Busy Snackers for 3-4 years now and do love them but after reading this I think we could ask the company to change something....Ideally, our horses should be eating with their heads down for a number of reasons, and the snackers can't do that because our brilliant minis would just pull the hay from the open top. I wonder if we could ask them to make some with three loops on the top instead of one. The top ( loading ) opening isn't that big. Use two snaps near the ends to close it and a double ended one in the middle to hang it. This way we could hang them lower with the same desired effect.

 

[targetsmom]

Good suggestion to close the Busy Snacker although I have not found that to be a problem. I hang mine on a 39" tall "hog" panel which is now only about 1 1/2" above the snow so the Busy Snacker is on the ground anyway! I use a carabiner (a real one)to keep the top closed and the bag is so stiff that the minis haven't tried to remove the hay that way. Unless they are so sneaky I don't see them do it, but they never finish all the hay. Maybe you could use the smaller carabiner look-a-likes I use for hanging buckets to keep the ends closed.

 

[GrullaBlue]

Reignmaker,

Where did you get your store rack gridwork? I'm wanting to try that.... my hubby actually built me a hay bunk for outside for our minis, and we've been testing with different things to use it as a slow feeder. So far, the holes of what we've used have either been too big to work as a slow feeder, or it fell apart. I'd like to try something like that to put in the bunk. The bunk has two sides, so I need to cover two maybe 2.5-3' by 8 foot sections. Or get four 4' sections...that'd be ok too. The feeder is great....we just have to get the right gridwork!

Angie

 

[Reignmaker Miniatures]

I got the metal grids from Costco. But... they are not something they're selling it was old shelving that they were tossing out. My BIL has access to a lot of that kind of thing from them and every now an again we/he find something that can be re-purposed When he picked up the shelving he was just planning to build wooden shelf frames and reuse the metal shelves for shelves. He never got around to that and asked if we wanted them so we came up with a use for them.

I would include a picture but hubby has lost our camera and I haven't replaced it yet.

 

[Sandee]

I have a couple of the "mini" hay nets. They work good as far as feeding at shows but they don't "wear" well. The bag is held together at the bottom with a plastic piece and already one of mine has "removed" the plastic and the bag is starting to fray.

 

[targetsmom]

I think there is a bit of confusion about the "slow feeder" hay nets I was asking about. I was NOT referring to regular mini size hay nets or nets such as pictured in Maplegum's post. That is exactly the type of hay net I had a mini get a foot caught in. There are various types of slow feeders but they all seem to have flat webbing and square holes 1.5" - 2" square that do not change shape. One type (Busy Snacker) is pictured below, with our two boys eating out of it from opposite sides of the fence.

Note that the feeder sits on the ground so they are eating more or less normally. Also, with the 67" of snow we have had in the past month, the fence is nowhere near as high as it is supposed to be!!!

 

[whitney]

Made slow feeders for all my horses big and little out of tennis net openings 1.5". They are GREAT! I've had horses for over 30 years and to look out and see content horses milling around and wandering over to eat a little hay and then come visit and then go to the water is a THING OF BEAUTY. No more STARVING horses greeting me twice a day. My Quarter Horses are on round bales in a run-in with a tennis net bag over the round bale. I have NO wasted hay, I mean NONE. One mare that is seperate has a full bale of hay hanging from her stall rafter its about a foot off the ground. These openings are way to small for a large horse to get a hoof caught in. My mini mare that is in the basement waiting to foal has a net that is off the floor 3' foot the leaves fall to the floor and she chooses to eat out of the net first and when its empty she cleans up the floor. I will NEVER feed any other way. Unless I can't find round bales that are put up right.

 

[chandab]

Not exactly a slow feeder, but I bought a Health EZ hay feeder for one of my mares that finishes off her hay in no time.

http://www.healthezhayfeeder.com/product-information When I first got it, I was putting her couple flakes in it and she had it gone pretty quick (not quite as quick as loose), now that everyone is getting round bale hay, I stuff it full off the round bale and it takes her quite awhile to eat her hay. [i don't think you could get enough loose hay into it for a full-size horse, but it seems to be the right amount for my B-size mare. It is winter, and I'm more than stuffing it for her, come summer I'll cut back a little bit.]

 

[sedeh]

I've been using the Busy Snacker for a couple of years now and just love them!! They're extrememly durable. I especially like them at the horse shows. I keep 2 minis in one stall without a divider and I can put one feeder at each end of the stall and they don't fight over the hay....they may trade places often but they don't fight.