It's been a fun year of riding!

It's been a loooooong time!

Wow!  It's been a very long time since I've posted anything here.  Going to have to get in the habit of checking in  more often!  Lots of things have changed since the last post.  New job for me now - left Lockheed Martin to work for Global Traffic Technologies about a month ago.  It's been a good change so far.
Back to the slow feeding - I still haven't got the barrel feeder back up, but plan to before winter sets in.  I've been replacing my old bags with some different ones made by Cinch Chix (www.cinchchix.com).  Their bags are better quality and they have several different sizes of mesh, from the standard small mesh at1.75" x 1.75", to  the slower 1.25"x 1.25" to the smallest at 1"x1" (extreme slow feeder).  I'm using the standard and the smallest in combination and just ordered the 1.25" mesh for winter.  I'm going to take one of my old standard bags and stitch it on to the barrel feeder when we get it hung up.  Only small mesh hay nets for my horses!  We won't be wasting any hay this year!
On a related note - I used a full bale bag at the last endurance ride in October - what a great way to make it easier to take care of the horses!  I hung the bale from the post of the high tie lines and put a horse on each side.  They could eat to their hearts content and I only had to add hay once all weekend!  And no wasted hay on the ground to clean up at the end of the weekend.  Winner all the way around!  :)

The Barrel Needs a Little TLC!

I went out to feed the horses tonight and the barrel feeder was laying on the floor of the loafing shed!  Dang it!  Absolutely no damage to it at all.  The only thing I can figure is the lag bolts worked their way loose and it just detached itself from the post!  Going to have to look at a different way to hang it up!  On the positive side - there wasn't any damage to the barrel, the lid or the net so all we have to do is re-hang it!

Basketball Hoop Style Slow Feeder

This is a different type of slow feeder - I call it a basketball hoop feeder.  Easy to make - this is actually a by-product of the original barrel feeder we made.  I had drilled the holes through the bottom edge of the barrel before we cut it off - it's easier to drill the holes that way as the barrel is more rigid.  Then we cut the bottom off and got the top of the barrel set up with a hinged lid.  The only problem the barrel was too tall for the place we wanted to hang it!  So we cut a 6 in ring off the bottom of the barrel and we had this.

I asked a friend of mine to give it a try because I didn't have a good place to hang it in my barn where it would get used all the time.  She's been using it most of the winter in a paddock with 3 horses and it's been working well.  She feeds some loose hay on the ground, then fills this with about 3 flakes of hay to give the horses something to munch on throughout the day.  So far, so good!

Shrimp netting - challenge feeder

Well, we made some updates to the barrel feeder!  First - Greg fixed it so it attaches more securely to the post.  We didn't use big enough washers on the inside the first time.  This time he got some large (1.25") washers which should be much better.  We used 2 - 4" lag bolts to the post in the loafing shed.  It seems really secure and so far seems to be holding up well.

I changed the netting out on the bottom.  The horses had worn a large hole in the original hay bag and after doing a couple of repairs with twine, I decided they needed to work harder to get their hay!  I "unstitched" the original small mesh hay bag and replaced it with some smaller mesh netting - shrimp netting with 1" spaces.

Well, after a week, I've only had to fill it 3 times - the horses are definitely having to work harder to fill it, but they can get the hay out.  I'll be watching them over the next month or so and see how it goes and how well the netting holds up.  So far, so good......

Pasture Halters!

Greg has been busy the last few evenings!  He's been making what we call "Pasture Safe Halters".  These are rope halters made from 1/4" and 3/16" rope.  It makes a halter that you can leave on your horse without worry.  They are great for those horses that walk away from you when you go out to catch them - you have a catch halter on them you can grab.  These are safe in pasture because they will break if the horse catches it on anything.  They are nice for you because you don't have to worry about your horse getting hurt, but can still catch them when you need to!

Net Failure :(

Bummer - found a hole in the small mesh hay net on my barrel feeder today!  I'm really surprised!  I have nets that I've used continuously for 2 yrs with no issues, so this was definitely a surprise.  I'm going to have to order a new net to put on there to replace it.  Of course, this net is probably 2 yrs old, so I should have expected something to fail eventually.   Not a big deal though - all I have to do is "unstitch" it an d it should be fine.  I can actually do it where the barrel feeder is hanging.  Not a horrible task - just need some daylight to do it with some temps above 20 so my fingers don't freeze!