Slow Feeding via Hockey Nets

 

About 3 years ago, I stumbled upon a website called Paddock Paradise when I was looking for a way to slow down my mare, Baby Doll’s speedy way of inhaling down her hay twice a day. I knew that it was healthier to allow horses to have access to hay 24/7 because they are grazers and browsers. I knew that horses could get ulcers and even colic when forced to eat meals like humans and wait 3-8 hours to eat just 2-3 times a day. But I wasn’t able to feed more often and I knew that if I left out an entire bale for my mare, she would eat it all gone in a matter of hours, because she could easily hoover 1-2 flakes of hay in 15 minutes.

And after another 20-30 minutes that same hay would be coming out the other end and she’d be hungry again.

So, on the advice and information supplied at Paddock Paradise, I ordered my Hockey Nets from Arizona Sports Equipment and soon had Two Small Mesh Slow Feeder Hay Nets installed in my barn and in one of my paddocks.

And my mare Baby Doll was belly up to the hay nets eating the way that a horse should: slowly, and with smaller mouthfuls. I could put 1-2 flakes of hay in her hay net and she would still be grazing out of it 3-4 hours later! 

A Link to that Post

So it just made sense to offer the hockey hay nets to Apache 2 years ago when she came to live at the Laughing Orca Ranch. Unlike Baby Doll, though, she was more impatient with the slow feeder style of eating hay and she used her hooves to whomp the hay nets until she created a few rips. I repaired the rips with hay bale twine and raised the hay nets higher and we didn’t have any issues after that.

Jump forward to our recent snowstorms and I’ve not seen brown earth in 14 days. Yeah. This snow has over stayed it’s welcome. I’ll be happy when it melts away and we can get some fresh, soft powder, because the real problem is trying to walk on this hard-packed, ankle-twisting, knee-yanking crumbly concrete kind of snow.

Last week I gave up trying to manage our steep hill twice a day, to bring the animals 7 gallon buckets of warm water to melt the ice in their water tanks. (Last year some underground critters chewed through electric lines and it’s too expensive and too big a job to rewire). So I bought a new 40 gallon water tank and a tank heater and got it installed at the bottom of the paddocks, between the llama/goat paddock and Apache’s big paddock, close behind our house.

So instead of having to struggle over the steep 400 feet of treacherous snow to reach the barn, now I only have to walk 50 feet from my back door. Yay! I’m so happy! No more having to break ice or haul 7 gallon water buckets up that slippery steep hill!

But then I realized it made sense to create a winter feeding station down by the house. So I ordered some more Hockey Netting from Arizona Sports Equipment and it arrived in just 2 days and I had a new hay net installed the same day and everything was good to go!

I did this hay net a little different than my first ones.

First I ordered the hockey puck barrier netting which is thicker than the basic hockey goal netting that I used the first time around. And instead of using caribiners to attach the mesh to the fence, I used the “Purse-Style” hay net design and tied it to the top rail with hay twine. But I want to change a couple things soon because I used what I had at home for the hay net opening, which was just two old mop handles. I’d like to get some thick wooden dowels instead. And I used some old socks, cut down the side to create two strips for tying into the mesh, to keep the mop handles from sliding out of the hay feeder on either side. I’d like to find something else. Any ideas?

 

We have a fourth garage/storage building that I can store hay and I don’t have to go up to the barn anymore to feed or water. I can do everything down close to the back of my house where I have easy access to everything I need.

And Apache’s happy because her hay is up off the snow and she can eat all day long. I like being able to look out my kitchen or bedroom windows and see her out there munching hay or taking rests and napping in the sun.

I want to bring one of the llama and goat feeders down, too, so they don’t have to eat off the cold snow. I considered making them a slow feeder hay net, too, but I’m pretty sure the goats would chew it right up. Plus the llamas and goats are cud chewers and utilize their feed much better than horses do, so forcing them to eat slow doesn’t make much sense. They will eat hay until their stomachs are full and then go lay down for a couple hours and regurgitate their cud for rechewing.

But I’m soooo happy with my new set-up and now feel like I can manage whatever the rest of our winter brings.  

Round Two with a Punch

 

The snow was just beginning to melt from our last snowstorm three days ago, when the weather reports began calling for more snowstorms several times this week.

This just in:

The National Weather Service in Albuquerque, NM has issued a Blizzard Warning... which is in effect from midnight tonight to 8 PM MST Tuesday. The Winter Storm Watch is no longer in effect.
Moderate to occasionally heavy snow will develop tonight across the Sandia and Manzano Mountains through the Central Highlands. (This is where we live)
Snow will increase in coverage and intensity early Tuesday morning along and behind a cold front. Very strong and possibly damaging winds are expected to develop across this area. Total snow accumulations of 2 to 6 inches are expected... however... the combination of the strong winds and snowfall will create treacherous driving conditions.

Wind speeds of 35 to 45 mph with gusts up to 60 mph will reduce visibilities less than one quarter mile in blowing and drifting snow. The snow and strong winds will start to diminish Tuesday evening.
Precautionary/preparedness actions...
Remember... a Blizzard Warning means severe winter weather conditions are imminent or highly likely.
Make sure you have adequate food and medicine at home for the duration of the storm. Check furnace and fuel levels.

Before I even read the above report, I woke up this morning and felt an urgency to drive to the grocery store and feed store to stock up on the essentials and some comfort items. Call it intuition or gut instinct, I’m glad I did because not long after I arrived home, the snowflakes began falling.

(Our driveway leading to our home. Photo taken early evening.)

So far it’s not as nice of a snowfall as our last storm. Our weather warmed up into 30’s and 40’s and I was enjoying the fact that our water buckets without heaters had thawed out. But of course that meant that any snow we received would be wet, icy and heavy. I’ve already had to go out to the chicken coop and shake off the wet snow and ice from the hawk netting, so it doesn’t end up weighted down.

And Jax has been volunteering to keep going up on the roof to clear the ice off of the satellite dish so we can still get clear reception.

This is as far outside as I could get Dobbie to go. Out the side door and beside the chicken coop. Normally she loves going to the barn with me, but with the snow as wet and cold as it is, she flatly refused, but she did pose for a photo.

But on a positive note, I finally finished putting up our Christmas lights and my kidlets helped me to decorate the Christmas tree. It feels kind of lonely and lacking without Truck Driver John here, but I must admit I did enjoy how helpful my kidlets are when given the opportunity. They worked together and assembled the tree and did a perfect job, too. And then as I sat and unwrapped the ornaments, they placed them all on the tree. It was relaxing allowing them to do that. In the past, I’ve always insisted on placing most of the ornaments on the tree for fear that the kidlets would place them all on one branch. Instead I gave the kidlets their own mini-Christmas Tree to decorate on their own.

But this year I let go of my inner control freak and just sat back, sipping a Samuel Adams Winter Brew (yummo), and enjoyed seeing my kidlets happy and proud to have such an important job. And I didn’t even go back over and adjust or move any ornaments afterwards and have no plans to do so, even if some of the ornaments are a little heavy on certain branches. I am letting go and feeling the joy, peace, and simpleness of the season. I am. And it feels good.

I walked outside to take a few photos of our house after I finished putting up the lights. Nothing too fancy, but in my mind, it doesn’t feel like Christmas without colorful, cheerful lights. And there is just something so ‘Norman Rockwell’ about sparkling lights when the snow is falling, which is one reason I keep our lights up well into January and sometimes into February as well. The colorful lights lift my spirits when our skies are grey, and the weather is cold, windy and snowy.

 

When it was time to feed the critters, I was hoping that Baby Doll wouldn’t walk down to greet me because of how wet the snow was, and I wanted my chubby girl to be dry so I could put her blanket on. But once she heard me open the gate, she mosied on down the hill.

When the snow is this wet and cold, she isn’t as happy being out in it as she is when the snow is dry. “Hey Mom, didn’t it just snow a couple days ago? Who ordered this slop and can we send it back?”

I had to dry her off with a towel for quite a while before I could put her blanket on and she actually seemed to enjoy the attention and was very cooperative and calm about me putting her blanket on afterwards. 

While I was up at the barn, my twinling Jax surprised me by joining me to help feed all the critters. He also likes to take photos and it’s interesting to me to see how others’ photos turn out when they use my camera. He did a pretty good job even with the lens getting wet and smudged by the snowflakes.

At one point, while he was taking the above photo, Baby Doll totally caught me off guard and walked up behind me when I wasn’t expecting her to. I had just fed her a thin flake of alfalfa hay and her hay net was full. I never let it get empty and Baby Doll is a much slower eater now, so two 3-string bale size flakes of hay will last her all day or night, and when I come to feed her, I always find some hay left over. I love that she is so relaxed about food now and seems to know that she will always have food available to eat, and not just twice a day, like I used to feed her.

Anyway, what I was trying to say, but making a short story, way too long, is that Baby Doll had a hay net full of hay, and a feed bucket semi-full of alfalfa, but still chose to come outside, in the snow to hang out with me. And she stood beside me patiently as Jax practiced his photo-taking skills for about 10 minutes, before she finally walked back into the barn to get caught up on her dinner. That wouldn’t have happened before I started using the hay net. And I just think that’s so cool.

           

 

While I don’t want the weather to get too bad, I’ve got all our provisions and comfort food and drink at the ready, for both human and critter to ride out the storm.

I just need to know: “How many more days till summer?”

(Oh. And this is my 4th snow post of the season. And counting.)

Horse Hockey

 

Nah. No horse hockey around here. They don’t sell ice skates big enough.

Just a handmade hay net created from a hockey net. An inexpensive and simple project that will make you and your horse very happy.

 

A few months ago I began researching alternative ways to feed my animals more naturally and to provide them their food even if I had to be away all day or wouldn’t be home until late. You all know how desperate and starving your horse acts even when you’re just an hour late in feeding them.

The biggest motivator for me was seeing how my mare inhaled her food in the morning within 20 minutes or less, and then she’d have nothing to do for 8 or more hours but stand around and pick at the little dead, brown tips of grass sticking out of our dusty, dry ground. That’s the way it is in most of New Mexico. Most horses are kept in dry, grassless, paddocks and unless we have a successful monsoon season (this year was not), our pastures just don’t produce enough grass to satisfy even the jackrabbits and cottontails.

It really bothered me seeing my bored horse standing around for 8 hours, just dreaming about her next meal.

And on winter nights, without anything to eat to keep her metabolism working until morning, her body has to work harder at keeping warm.

I wanted to change that.

As everyone knows, horses are grazing animals. And even though I have no grass to give my mare to graze on, I wanted to offer her a compromise.

Enter, the handmade Hockey Hay Net!

After reading about it on Paddock Paradise, I placed my order from Arizona Sports Equipment. I ordered 4 feet of hockey netting, which comes in 10 foot widths. At $3.29 a foot, my order only came to $13.16. And with shipping the total was only $21.69.

Not too bad for an extra large hay net, or in my case, two large hay nets.  

After it arrived with some rather slow shipping, I sat down with my hay bale twine and got to work.

I read all the instructions from Paddock Paradise and used the photos to guide me. And I also checked out Akal Ranch Blog, which has some helpful instructions and photos, too.

I folded the hockey net in half, and then with baling twine, I laced up each short side with half hitch knots all the way to the top. It took me less than 20 minutes to complete. And then I took the hay net outside and attached it to my mare’s paddock fence using caribiner clips. And then I filled the hay net with hay. (This photo was obviously taken after Baby Doll had eaten most of it. lol!)

    

This is the size hay net that is recommended for multiple horses because you can place an entire bale or two of hay inside.

I only have one horse, and I wanted some more options, so I ended up cutting this net in half to modify it for my needs. After lacing up the cut ends with half-hitch knots, I kept one hay net in her paddock, but placed the other hay net in her stall inside the barn. I figured that way, in inclement weather, she would have a warm, dry place to enjoy grazing on her hay all day and night.

The hay nets have been in use for over a week now and I’ve learned a few things and made a few modifications to make them work even better for me and my horse.

The hay net in her paddock rests against the fence and when Baby Doll was grabbing the hay, she’d push some of it through to the other side, where she couldn’t get to it.

So, I took an empty feed bag (plastic, not paper), cut it open flat, and attached it to the fence, behind the hay net, cutting small holes in the feed bag and tying it to the fence with baling twine. It has worked perfectly in helping to keep the hay on the paddock side of the fence.

I also learned that my mare will sometimes pick up the hay net and toss it into the air to shake out any loose hay. Sometimes the hay net would flip over the top of the fence, where she couldn’t reach the hay net or hay at all. So, on the paddock hay net, I attached another caribiner on the bottom of the hay net to hold it down and used two pieces of baling twine on each side of the hay net, towards the middle, and tied it to the fence.

Now if you have horses that wear shoes, I’ve read that the hay net should be mounted high enough where the horse can’t get their shoe caught in the mesh. My mare is barefoot, so my hay nets are mounted just several inches above the ground. 

For the stall hay net, I didn’t even bother with caribiners. I just attached the hay net to the metal pipe railing with more hay bale twine. And to control Baby Doll from tossing the hay net over the top of the pipe rail, I tied the middle of the hay net on each side, to the bottom pipe rail. I didn’t have to worry about attaching the feed bag ‘guard’ behind the stall hay net because the bottom pipe rail holds the hay net away from the fence, so all the hay that drops will just fall below it.

  

The website said that for the first week some horses might have trouble with the hay net, but will quickly figure it out. So, for the first few days, I placed about a half a flake of hay on the ground below the hay net and I filled the hay net with the other half, plus another flake, just so she wouldn’t be hungry and frustrated as she learned how to eat from the hay net. But within 2 days she had the hay net all figured out.

The website also said in the beginning many horses will still try to wolf down their hay and it will seem that you’re going through a lot of hay using the hay net. But once the horse understands that they have plenty of time and plenty of hay to eat all day or night, they will slow down and take their time and relax. And I’ve found that to be true of my mare, too. The first few days it only took her two hours and her hay net was empty. A little over a week later and I can look out the window 5-7 hours after I filled up her hay net with 2-3 flakes of hay, and she is still blissfully munching away.

Baby Doll’s attitude seems better, too. She’s not as cranky or impatient when I’m with her. She’s not standing around bored all the time. And when she does stand around, it’s because her belly is full of hay and she’s taking a nap.

I imagine that, for a horse, having access to fresh grass or grass hay all day long is akin to us humans being able to lightly snack all day long. It would be much healthier for us, too, rather than eating three large meals a day…and then feeling hungry in between.

When a horse grazes slowly all day it aids in their digestion, encourages them to drink more often, and helps them relax. And a hay net helps keeps a horse from being bored and prevents wasted hay, too.  

Of course, the handmade hockey hay net isn’t the only option either. You can see a helpful review of many different hay nets, if you check out this website, Paddock Paradise.

I would totally recommend these hay nets to anyone who has bored horses, horses that could use some extra warmth at night, and for horses that have to wait a long time between meals. Your horse will thank you for it.