# Hay - mess, feet, and more



## VickNick (Oct 1, 2015)

How do you feed your goats hay? 
I've tried:
Nets (I thought these were a great idea until they decided it'd be fun to get tangled because they want to put their feet in) 
Buckets (They put their feet in)
Rack on the wall (They put their feet up and in) 
Hanging from trees (much much wastage)
I'm at my wits end - how do you feed your goats hay without 90% being wasted, and people sticking their poopy muddy feet into the clean hay?!


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## Suzanne_Tyler (Jul 19, 2014)

I currently have one of these:

https://www.premier1supplies.com/sheep-guide/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/BYO-Feeders-2012.pdf

It has worked better than anything else I've tried.


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## VickNick (Oct 1, 2015)

Mine'd totally put their feet in that. I swear they're all reincarnated ballet dancers.


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## Suzanne_Tyler (Jul 19, 2014)

Mine little ones do put their feet on the edge, but never in the actual tray.


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## 15WildTurkey (Apr 13, 2015)

They stand up on the bottom slat to eat but don't seem to waste any more then a goat will. 
Sorry for blurry pic. And it was just before we got the girls so it's filled with shaving bags not hay but 3 months in it's working out well.


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## Lexis9784 (Jun 4, 2017)

My husband made one like this for ours. They haven't made a mess of it yet, but it's only been about a week. LOL


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

The biggest key if there is a lot of waste is feed less. I do have some waste but not a whole lot because they are not fed 100% free choice. Also stopping them from being able to pick and choose threw it will help too. If my goats didn't have horns I would go with what Suzanne showed. Those stems can sit there all day long and if they are hungry they will have to eat them and not eat poop too. Make the holes just big enough their heads can go threw 
But mine do have horns and some have some pretty crazy horns so the the the space to allow them to put their head threw would also let their whole body fit :/ so I go with small holes. I have 2 kids of feeders, the one I'm not overly thrilled with but they work for now, they just don't have a catch tray but still very little waste because it's the 4X4 squares. Anyways I like this feeder I made WAY more. The kids do have to put their front feet on the lip to reach but if the area around it is clean it's
Not the end of the world. Because the holes are so small they kinda have to eat what their little mouth gets ahold of and pulls threw. Pretty much the only thing that ends up in the catch tray is the leaves and they will suck those up. But eventually all my feeders will be these


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Oops posted before it uploaded


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## cheyenne (Aug 21, 2011)

Here is what I came up with for a hay feeder... They still waste hay, as in there is some hay they just aren't going to eat no matter what! They don't put their feet in with the hay but sometimes they'll pull it out and drop it on the ground. We've since replaced the pallets with a couple of stall mats, which work better. This was made from scrap lumber. It does keep the hay dry unless we have severe wind with rain. If I were to do it over again, I'd make it deeper and wider. Maybe even a bit longer. We've been using this for almost 3 years now. So far it has worked better than anything I've tried.  If you do make something like this, be sure and tie it down! My husband pounded T-posts on opposite corners and we wired to those.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Love the ideas on here.

This one I think my husband built around 5 years ago. The only difference is he put some boards across the top sides to better support the front.
He cut the pallet in half, and the cut the back half off, and used scrap osb/plywood for the bottom 'tray' and wood stumps from a tree he cut down for the legs. All made from scrap stuff we had around here. It works great! Currently my son's yearling buck uses this as his shelter, and he likes to put his feet up on the tray and eat over the top which works great for him since it's just the right height he doesn't drag it out/waste it. Any waste on the tray that isn't eaten I spread around for bedding.









We have a 2nd feeder made similar but no tray that also works great, it's taller and the goats can only eat from the front.

In our main shelter we bought a 'v' shaped feeder from someone, and mounted it on posts. There is waste, but whatever they drop they use for bedding. With the slow waste, and summer weather, I haven't had to bed down that shelter all summer, nor have we had to clean it out.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

BTW, I meant to mention I would never use a hay net for goats, nor any other bag that they could risk hanging themselves in! If worse comes to worse I'd rather have waste than a dead or hurt goat. 

Now, with that said, the only bags we use are ones I made for my kids show goats and they are only used at the shows. Never had an issue with them at all. They are made out of heavy/strong canvas. I'd never, ever use these at home. At the shows there are always people around, and we check them regularly. 

I've heard horror stories about the hay net and slow feeders. I wish goats wouldn't get themselves into so much trouble!


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## cheyenne (Aug 21, 2011)

cheyenne said:


> Here is what I came up with for a hay feeder... They still waste hay, as in there is some hay they just aren't going to eat no matter what! They don't put their feet in with the hay but sometimes they'll pull it out and drop it on the ground. We've since replaced the pallets with a couple of stall mats, which work better. This was made from scrap lumber. It does keep the hay dry unless we have severe wind with rain. If I were to do it over again, I'd make it deeper and wider. Maybe even a bit longer. We've been using this for almost 3 years now. So far it has worked better than anything I've tried.  If you do make something like this, be sure and tie it down! My husband pounded T-posts on opposite corners and we wired to those.


Oops! It would help if I would attach the photo! LOL Sorry!


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## New-goat-mom (May 21, 2017)

A friend of mine did something I initially thought was crazy, but it works! On the inside of his fence he attached a large square of welded wire fencing. It is securely attached on both sides and the bottom. The top is open. He simply drops a couple of flakes down in it and they pull it out the holes. There was surprisingly not that much falling to the ground (far less than my girls waste!) and it's so simple!


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## VickNick (Oct 1, 2015)

What a lot of great ideas!!! Thanks, everyone!!


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## VickNick (Oct 1, 2015)

Jessica84 said:


> The biggest key if there is a lot of waste is feed less.


I agree - but the biggest issue I have is with them putting their feet in. I'm in TX and right now (and periodically through the year) it's really wet and muddy. Swamp everywhere. They track it in the barn, and that means swamp mud on the hay! And they'll eat it, too. These girls spent 3 days in the barn not getting to browse due to the hurricane, (And I was digging ditches and putting in sandbags etc so wasn't able to get them extra food more than twice a day) so they're hungry - and my usual 'put out a flake for them to nibble on at night' isn't cutting it. They have some eating to make up for! I'm stuffing flakes in tree forks, in between pallet strips, and so on, to give them multiple places to eat during the evening. (I lock them out of the barn area during the day, or they'd never go browse, they'd just stand in the yard and complain about being hungry, lol! Walking them to their current browse field every AM - and home at night - is a pain, but this is the only way I've found to make sure they actually browse all day, in a new place every week or two, instead of just eating one patch down to nothing, and ignoring everything else.)


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## Lstein (Oct 2, 2014)

Suzanne_Tyler said:


> I currently have one of these:
> 
> https://www.premier1supplies.com/sheep-guide/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/BYO-Feeders-2012.pdf
> 
> It has worked better than anything else I've tried.


I have these too, nice heavy duty feeders, I have one two sided and 2 one sided. Going to be making at least 2 maybe 4 more one sided feeders this year hopefully. I want to replace a whole section of my fence with them and make a hay manger behind them. (get hay blowing all over the yard as it is)


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

New-goat-mom said:


> A friend of mine did something I initially thought was crazy, but it works! On the inside of his fence he attached a large square of welded wire fencing. It is securely attached on both sides and the bottom. The top is open. He simply drops a couple of flakes down in it and they pull it out the holes. There was surprisingly not that much falling to the ground (far less than my girls waste!) and it's so simple!


That's basically what I have going just with the same panels as the feeder I showed and I rigged it a little different but still same idea behind it.
Ok the feeding less is not going to work in your case, they are not wasting because they are spoiled. I would look into getting some panels for your feeders. Even if you already have feeders you can cut the panels and lay into the inside of the feeders........depending on what you have going on.


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

This is what I have in my barn.

https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=8529e875-33a9-48f2-9ba4-0a703c4eaa55


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## DonnaBelle66 (Mar 4, 2013)

My husband made one of those hay bunks with the keyhole head entry. If your goats have horns each keyhole would need to be a bit wider. Almost no hay waste.


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## DonnaBelle66 (Mar 4, 2013)

ksalvagno said:


> This is what I have in my barn.
> 
> https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=8529e875-33a9-48f2-9ba4-0a703c4eaa55


We have those in the individual stalls.


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## wndngrvr (Dec 10, 2011)

We have two feeders that we saw in one of the books. It works really great and there is no waste compared to all other feeders we have used. The boards on the slant keep them from taking their heads out of the feeder and dropping it all over the floor.


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## mariarose (Oct 23, 2014)

In an emergency situation, I once stuffed several feed bags with loose hay and staplegunned them to things above their heads, then cut two small slits in the bottom of the bags. It worked well and I was able to reuse the bags a few times.

Putting flakes in did not work as the girls were pulling the bags off the walls but making the hay loose fixed that.


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## LizWiz (Sep 12, 2017)

Mine is very similar to jessica84's, but I have no wood base, just wire with thin wood plank to keep it in shape. All I would say is make sure the holes are big enough to allow their little mouth to grab the grass/hay, but small so no waste.  Deff don't make it so they can put weight on any feature, they will break it up. - of course the biggest goats will try however.


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## LizWiz (Sep 12, 2017)

But I have never fed mine goats hay - this may just work for grass and weeds.


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## WarGoat (Sep 12, 2017)

Hello all I'm new here. I'm using round rolls of hay under a simple awning.It's usually reserved for the winter months as they won't touch the hay whilst green grass and brush to eat. Almost forgot. I've got pygmies and Pygmy-Nubian.


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## WarGoat (Sep 12, 2017)

**Usually reserved** dunno why that came out sally in the above reply lol


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## mariarose (Oct 23, 2014)

WarGoat said:


> Hello all I'm new here. I'm using round rolls of hay under a simple awning.It's usually reserved for the winter months as they won't touch the hay whilst green grass and brush to eat. Almost forgot. I've got pygmies and Pygmy-Nubian.


They don't jump on and climb on and poop on them? Mine would with glee and abandon.


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## WarGoat (Sep 12, 2017)

Not at all lol. You can use a short canopy or in my case I made a simple low awning. There is less than 1 foot clearance between the hay and metal covering. Yes it's slightly heavy but no problem for a tractor to move.


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## WarGoat (Sep 12, 2017)

I forgot to mention hay isn't very costly here. By the time they eat half of it and start to stomp it. I'll just fill a hole or spread and put out new. I'm using large cattle rolls and only 5 total goats atm.


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