# New hay feeder!



## neener92 (Nov 4, 2012)

This is the hay feeder we built today, everything was recycled but the screws. The main part was used as a cattle mineral feeder but we switched to 55 gallon barrels. The slats were from my uncles porch. We are redoing the roof, I don't like how its messed up. It seems to work well.


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## Southern by choice (Nov 4, 2012)




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## terrilhb (Nov 4, 2012)

Nice.


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## neener92 (Nov 5, 2012)

The goats and I love it! There is hardly any waste! All I had to do this morning was get all the hay out of the tray area and put it back in the feeder part, if that would have been my other feeder I would be pitch forking over half the hay out! The feeder can easily hold 3 square bales, but I'm only putting one in at a time.


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## greybeard (Nov 5, 2012)

It's a good start for sure, and not much in the photo for scale,  but from what I can tell, the slats seem a little too far apart.  Too much forage is being pulled out thru the wide openings you appear to have. Even for cattle, I build them no more than 3 1/2" between the vertical  slats. The animals can still get plenty of hay but don't pull out as much to fall down in the "tray".  Ideally,  too, the trays should extend out almost as far as angled slats do at the animal's normal  the feeding level.  Beleive me, they'll still be able to pull that loose hay out from narrower slat openings and you won't have as much high $ hay wasted.
It may work if you just attach some woven wire up on the existing slats instead of narrowing them. 
Otherwise--good job!


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## neener92 (Nov 5, 2012)

The slats are probably too far apart, not sure exactly how much. I'm not too worried about it unless they start wasting a lot! It beats the heck out of having to clean good hay off the barn floor every morning. If they start wasting too much I'll probably cut and put up some kind of panel. Thank you!


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