I believe this was my first "Slow Feeder". Everything before that had just been "feeders". My objective was to make one flake of a small bale last longer and make the horse to chew the hay more rigorously by making it impossible for him to fill his mouth. Horses that do fill there mouth seems not to chew the food enough to feel content when they have had their fair share.
The story began 1996 with that I thought my horses were wasting their food. They had free access to oat straw in a large box and they were wasting lost of straw by throwing out on the ground and step on it instead of eating it.
Back then I had no idea this would eventually lead to an international trend changing how the world are feeding their horses or that it could change the horses metal status in the fantastic way it does.
I would recommend you to directly aim for "Contiuous Slow Feeding" instead of settling for just "Slow Feeding". This because the real values does not come to you until you have managed to get "Contiuous Slow Feeding" to work as it is supposed to. This means that your horse can have access to his hay 24/7 without eating too fast or too much.
My experimenting has made me completely convinced that a welded Slow Feeding grid shall have openings measuring 5x5cm = 2"x2" and SMHN shall have a mesh size of 3.5-4cm = 1 3/8" (or just above).
Larger holes just makes it too easy for the horse to get the hay out and smaller hole makes him stand there all the time instead of engaging in other activities. The horse is "programmed" to use his mouth allmost all the time he is awake and it is up to us to make him use it for other thing than eating too sweet hay.
If your horse is still eating too much even though he has a perfect Slow Feeding arrangment the chance is that his paddock or pasture just is too boring.
Next step in my Slow feeding evolution was this two sided Slow Feeder built to contain much more hay and make it possible for more horses to eat at the same time.
When this was built I had not found out the perfect hole size of the eating grid so theses ones are much too big.
What I did was to take to grids with really large holes and put them on top of each other and move one diagonally to make the openings 1/4 of the original size.
This construction had two identical sides and the hay storages were 60x120cm=24"x48" which is the smallest that even has the slightest chance to work (but it still only does occasionally).
I gave up this kind of constructions due to the fact that the hay very often got stuck between the parallel sides for the horses to look att but not being able to reach.
Before I gave up this kind of constructions with a large box like container and a vertical eating grid I also tried an even bigger one hoping that the weight of the hay would press everything down. As long as I kept the front wall parallel to the back it got stuck all the time but after making it deeper/wider at the bottom that at the top it started to work better. It never worked perfect though so I kept searching for better solutions.
My hope was to be able to fill this one with the tractor, just dumping hay into it, but that NEVER worked. The hay got stuck on the way down every single time. It did work better if I filled it by hand little by little but that was much too time consuming for my taste. I prefer using the time I have got for the horses doing something we all enjoy. Not just mocking and feeding but much rather being out in the forest climbing mountings or exploring unknown paths.
This with Slow Feeding is highly contagious and you are hopefully allready infected.
One of my creative horse owning cutomers (who is not only extraordinary skilld in trimming) did put the eating grid directly on the barn wall just next to the hay storage.
(Excuse the low picture quallity. It was taken with an old cell phone.)
It was just to grab the hay fork and fill the hay pocket on the inside of the barn wall and eating grid. Very easy and well protected against bad weather.
This kind of feeders do how ever work best with complete flakes of hard pressed bales.
I do believe this one still is in use even though I think they have a
SMHN too.
This customer had enormous problems with a disorderly herd at feeding times until they bought this little (and two more) shed and made it into a hay house on their way home from my clinic.
They cut holes in three wall and fitted them with adjustable eating grids (too large) and built hay pockets inside the little shed. Once a week they take their tractor, load it with small bales and drive around filling all the sheds with bales.
Once a day they go into the sheds to devide the bales by putting a couple of flakes in each hay pocket (three in each shed).
To day the harmony in the herd of 7 Icelandic horses are complete. No fighting, no kicking at fiiding times and the owners are not affraid to go in to the herd at any time anymore.
This kind of pallet containers, holdin a 1000 litre plastic container (used further down) are found in many places in the industies and on farms. You can find them with large hole (completely worthless) and with small holes like this (no good).
I did use aluminun sheet metal to devide and make the hay slide to the eating grid and it worked pretty okay when using complete flakes but not at all when usin loose hay.
I thought that since the horses would be able to eat from all sides the hay would not get stuck between the side but instead fall down and slide out. What I didn't know back them was that hay can hang in the middle of nothing.
Next chapter in the book of hard Slow Feeders is about this 4-way feeder. I still think it is a very smart construction since it gives 4 separate but equal eating sides and no parallel walls.
I was hoping to be able to produce and sell this kind of feeders (in flat packages) but the cost for materials turned out to be very high so I gave up that project.
It does however need a roof if placed in harsh climates.
ThisSlow Feeder is even equiped with a little shelf for placing the bale when removing the strings.
DON'T GO HERE!
I have tried so many ideas and constructions base on the wish to push the hay towards the eating grid and IT NEVER WORKS.
In this case the bucket filled with stones hanging in the rope was thought to lift the tarp rolling the hay towards the eating grid.
The truth is that it pressed to much or not enough so it never really worked.
I found this mail container at a customers farm. The holes are really small 1"x2"=2.5x5cm so I had to cut everyother away to make them twice as big and the make everything smooth and nice for the horses not to hurt them selves.
Of corse the hay got stuck between the parallel sides right away but after putting non-parallel side of aluminum shet metal inside it did start to work fairly well.
We are however not using it anymore since SMHNs are a better solution.
This paddock Slow Feeder is not a bad idea. Specially for shoed horses but I believe the slope needs to be MUCH steeper.
I do not know if it is still in use.
This Box Stall Corner Slow Feeder works most of the time but the sloped bottom must be really steep.
The joint are mounted to make it possible open it for cleaning and retrieving my glowes when I dropped them into the feeder. The string holding the bottom is to make it possible to open it even when it is full of hay without the hay ending up on the floor.
I did build Slow Feeders for horses in 3 box stalls but since our own horse are in turn out they have been much more used for feeding hay to our goats which has worked fine.
I like this concept when the horse is grazing from the Slow Feeder in an natural angle.
It is however much mor work with feeres like this than with most other kinds since it needs to be empted before refilled not to get old moldy hay in the bottom. Snow can also be a problem since i might put a lid on the feeder.
Every single horse I have heard of that has received a feeder like this of his own has figured out that by eating on one side for a while he could tilt the grid and get his head in underneath to get free choice. Som arrangement needs to be done to stop this.
When more horses are sharing the same Grazing Slow Feeder they do not come together on eating from one side and tilting the grid.
This particular Slow Feeder is a very complicated arangement with the hay but on a board in a hole in the ground and weights lifting it up to the eating grid.
It is not in use any more.
This is one of my absolute favorites. Just as good for shoed or barefoot horses. A complete bale dressed in a SMHN and put in a box.
It is however beter if the loose SMHN is streched up to the wall above the box to stop it from laying on top of the hay. Otherwise there will be a lot of loos netting laying on top of the hay after a while making it too hard for the horse to get the hay.
I do not recommend using pallet rims sinc there are too many thigs for the horse hurt him self on. If you do use pallet rims make sure they are nailed together so that the horse can not pick them apart and get tangled.
This is the 1000 litre plastic container from the Icelandic horses higher up on this page.
I believe it to be imposible to hurt ine self on something like this but again it is better if the SMHN is stretched upwards.
Another solution is to just block the corner with an old door or something of an appropriate height for the horse to eat over and put the netted bale in the corner (with the net stretched up to the wall of course).SMHNs are extremely veratile. They can be use in numerous ways and the hay never gets stuck. The only thing you have to meak sure is that shoed horse do not get their shoes into the netting because them they might get stuck.
Quite some people fill the SMHN with hay and just leave it laying on the ground for their barefoot horses to playaround with. I do not recommend this because they might very well do other things that just standing on them to make them extremely dirty or even tear them apart.
They can be hang between two trees or poles....
...on a wall...
If you use one broomstick and one flexible plasstic pipe it becomes quite easy to open, fill and reclose.
Tape the plastic pipe to the net in one end and let it stick out in the other
...or in the middle of the air.
This is A VERY GOOD WAY TO SLOW HORSES DOWN and to make it much harder for them to tear up the net.
For horses with special needs (i.e. still eating too much and too fast) a free hanging net is often the solution. It might however be too challenging so keep an eye on the horses weight.
If you nail one side of the SMHN to the outside of a low box wall making it possible to easily fill the SMHN.
Now throw/swing the the SMHN over the wall into the box.
Now the SMHN will cover its own opening making it impossible for the horse to stick his head into the opening.
This feeder was built to be a hard Slow Feeder with a vertical metal eating grid. The metal grid was then replaced with a SMHN hanging on two broom sticks.
- Open the lid.
- Slide the broomstcks appart.
- Dump the hay in the SMHN.
- Push the broom sticks together again.
- Close the lid.
Same as above but this time with mounted hoof protection for shoed horses.
There is an enormous difference between different net materials. We have asked and discussed and trie and tested and been sorry and found this polyester that we are using now to be better than anything we have ever tested before. Even much better that the polyester that we did use in Generation 2 even though it is supposed to have exactly the same specifications.
The mesh size is however smaller in Generation3 than it has been before. Now it it 35.5mm = 1 3/8".
We carry 4 standard sizes:
- "Mini" for the trailer.
- "Small" for the box. Takes a full small bale of 10kg=20lbs.
- "Large" for the shelter or outside. Takes a full 2-3 strimg American bale of 60kg=120lbs or 3 small bales.
- "Rond bale" The real money saver that contains even the largest round bales.
We have customers saying the they have save 30% on hay consumption due to the fact that horses that usually are on free choice from a round bale waste enormoud amounts of hay but with a Cylindrical Round Bale SMHN there is no more waste or at least not more than fits in a bucket when the complete bale is consumed.
Our SMHNs can be hang in lots of ways. Directly in their "suspenders" or using hooks.
I originally made these to get a quick and easy way to fasten a leadrope but they work just a perfect for hanging SMHNs.
We tie a rope from the top of the SMHN to the ceiling of the shelter to stop the the haynet from falling down as the hay becomes consumed or to be more precise to stop the horses from steping up on the bale when the amount of hay i it is low.
Since we do not want our horses to ever see the SMHN empty we move the last part of the hay to a different SMHN and replace the roundbale before any eating stress has a chance to set in.
Our own horses are so used to having food all the time so they don't really care but one horse that stay with us for a while showed definite stress reactions as soon as he thought the hay level was too low and thet was almost 2 day before it was all gone.
Earlier we did use a wire lock for bicycles to simplify the closing of the Round Bale net
and that works just fine. We have however found it even easier to use a large smoth regular hook instead.
Of course you can dress the round bale like this but I do not recommend it since there will be alot of net laying around when the round bale becomes small.
As soon as our harvest is done I will post pictures and instructions for how even small people can turn a round bale.
If there are shoed horses in your herd you need something that kepps the shoes away from the SMHN.
If you live in Texas or somewhere else wher it hardly ever rains you might be able to just dress the round bale and leave it in the open.
If you however live somewhere where bad weather is just as common (or more) as nice weather a roof is absolutely a recommendation.
This Round Bale SMHN is actually not used for rond bales but for a bunch of small bales.
These Mini Shetlands do have a feeder of their own but they prefer to eat with the big guys as long as they can reach the hay.