Just before the horses came in for winter we found out that there wasn't enough bale ring feeders to go around this year. Between me and my mum we couldn't afford to buy one for ourselves and we were struggling to find one that wasn't a cattle ring feeder online. This meaning that we'd have to put the full bale into the field as is and possibly loose quite a bit of hay with the wind that we get near the sea. The other option was to buy a bale net to out over the full bale in the field, but we were then concerned that when the bale started to get lower what shape the net would take. 

Thankfully my dad was around and had plenty of spare wood in the garage that he'd kept over the years. With emptying the garage he was then able to make us our own ring feeder. This has been down in the field since the first week of November and it's been moved many times over winter to keep it out of the worst of the mud, but apart from that it hasn't been treated and it's working really well. The pieces at the bottom and placed well for them to take the weight of the bale. To get the sizing he measured up the size of your average pallet which a bale fits on perfectly and then added a little space for the bale to be put in easily with the tractor. Each of the corners are together with screws and then have L shaped pieces of metal to have extra security and to add strength to the frame. 

Here's a picture of the horses using it well in the field.

Have you ever had to think out of the box for anything and either create something or or use something different of a different job?

Haynet or No Haynet?

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.