I'm wanting to get a Hay Chix net for round bales. Do you guys prefer the regular 1 3/4" or the 1" slow feed? Did you get the original or the heavy duty? Have they held up? We have grass hay round bales as well as alfalfa. The alfalfa round bales are a good balance of stems and leaves. Has anyone ever fed Alfalfa in them?
Posted 2018-02-15 6:53 AM Subject: RE: Hay Chix Nets
Married to a Louie Lover
Posts: 3303
We have the heavy duty ones that we feed small bales of grass in. I think they are the 1 3/4” holes but I can’t recall for sure. This is our second winter with them and we also used them all last summer hauling. Holding up beautifully! We plan to keep using them into summer this year to offer grass hay.
Alfalfa...you’d just have to try it and see. On a round bale it might be okay. The alfalfa we have is very leafy and wouldn’t work very well. We just toss them a flake or 2 in the evening.
Posted 2018-02-15 4:18 PM Subject: RE: Hay Chix Nets
Experienced Mouse Trapper
Posts: 3106 Location: North Dakota
I bought a used one (big round bale) from a friend 1 3/4", put a horse hay feeder around it. Best. Thing. Ever. nothing to push away except manure, not piles of wasted hay anywhere! It is simply senseless not to use a net, especialy for horses, they are so prone to upper respiratory issues and this almost prevents that from being a major issue. (they can't bury their heads into the loose hay) The only downfall is having to put the net on when it's really cold (-10-20)) they get pretty stiff, not because of the material but because of the condensation from the horses and the licking. We have very big bales this year (5'5" + 1450#) and the net fits, but we are finding it is easier to put the net on over the net wrap on the bale and peel the net wrap off after the net is over the top. It will not stand up to grapple teeth on a loader so we use pallet forks on our skid steer. the 5 head of roping steers we have waste way more hay than our horses and to me that is almost laughable, who would have thought of horses being less wasteful??
Hay Chix Nets
