-- Posted by jo on Jan. 6, 2002

Any tried and tested methods of feeding hay in fields.
At the moment I feed two horses hay on the floor but so much seems to be wasted..
I'm interested in a "V" shape hay feeder/rack...the best way i can think of describing it is a manger with a V of mesh above it..
Does anyone have one and where did you get it/

-- Posted by les on Jan. 6, 2002

agricultural suppliers may have - although not all suitable for horses -you can buy field feeders from CAM - mesh boxes to either hang on the fence or bigger ones for frames

-- Posted by Gamberro on Jan. 6, 2002

I've spoken to a friendly tyre merchant and he's going to let me have a couple of old tractor tyres to feed hay from in the field.  A friend of mine uses them and they seem to work pretty well - stops it getting blown about by the wind and trodden on.  And they're moveable - in theory anyway!

-- Posted by T L Equestrian on Jan. 7, 2002

Now there's a good idea!  
Let us know how it works!

-- Posted by Cob Nut on Jan. 7, 2002

We have the big round bales, and you can buy a feeder to go round them so that it doesn't all get trampled into the ground.

They're not cheap - about £100 from CWG - but we reckon that with five horses to feed, two of them will have paid for themselves in one winter's feeding. Before we had them, we were getting about 7 horse days of ad-lib hay per bale; with them we're getting 10.

-- Posted by Lin on Jan. 7, 2002

I put hay in field and they ignore it. Then come in and pig on haynets like they're starved!!! Last year they lived out and the field hay was perfectly okay. I despair sometimes

-- Posted by AlisonWoods on Jan. 7, 2002

If you have post & rails fencing and it's high enough you can tie hay nets up on the fence.  I've done that as it helps keep the horses apart a bit and stops the bickering.

-- Posted by Roo on Jan. 7, 2002

Let us know how the tractor tyres go ! sounds like a fantastic idea as I  know loads of farmers.

-- Posted by Joe R  on Jan. 7, 2002

We too have round bales in the field for ad-lib and we did look at the cattle ring but thought it too expensive !  I had a brain wave one day and got some large pallets of wood and shaped them into a 1 foot high square to fit around the base of the bale to form a sort of box and this works brilliantly so I think that you could do the same for small amounts of hay but just make it smaller.