Many people have different opinions on using haynets or not. There are many people (including myself) who have used haynets without even knowing about some of the health concerns of using them, and until writing this post and doing some research on the cons of using them I didn't even think about potential scenarios which could happen when using them.
Pros
- Less mess
- Save money
- Less waste
- Control how much your horse is eating
- Can be made up ready for the next day/week
- Slows down eating
- Doesn't get dragged into the bed/left in wee
- Can be tied in specific place so horse doesn't make as much mess
Cons
- Takes time making them up
- Need to work out how much to give to last the day/night
- Goes against natural grazing of floor level
- If not tied correctly, can become loose and horse can get stuck in it
- Pulling on the net develops wrong back/neck muscles
When it comes to giving the horses hay in the field I've always filled up haynets them emptied them onto the floor in the field, but this year we have had to give hay to them quite early on in the year and with no grass in the field they are eating up a net each within an hour. Not being able to put a big round bale in the field we had to come up with other ideas to make it last. Meaning we had to put nets up in the field. Thinking about some naturalish ideas of putting nets over big tubs we couldn't think of ways to make that work. So as the field used to be split in 2 fields there's still some fencing left up, We decided to hang haynets from the rails. This idea is now making the hay last alot longer and there's less chance of them walking it into the mud.
In the winter when the horses are in at night time, they now have haynets as I've used a haybar before and both horses have dragged their hay to the door and dropped it in their wee. Which ends up wasting it all and costing us more over winter.
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