hay manger????

[mtn_gin]

We have nearly got our new barn built and I want to put in a good hay manger. Does anyone have any good ideas on how to build it. There will be goats and calves using it and my milk cow some but mostly smaller animals.

[Caitedid]

Be careful with what kind of wire you use with any animal, especially with horns. Have had to cut a few free, and one of my friends just had two goats strangle in the middle of the night after they got their heads stuck. Just a thought.

[uncle Will in In.]

A problem comes when goats have access to cow feeders. If a cow can stick her head into a feeder, the goats will jump in the feeder and soil the hay to where nothing will eat it. The best goat hay feeders I've seen were a solid wall with keyhole shaped holes for the goats to stick their heads in to the hay. They raise their heads to the top wider part of the hole to reach in then lower their head down into the narrow part of the hole to eat the hay. They can't pull hay out, and drop it on the ground without raising their heads to the wide space at the top of the keyhole.
Cow feeders I've seen have pipe or 2x4s up and down at an angle for the cows to stick their heads through to the hay. This causes the cows to turn their heads at an angle to get in to the hay. That tends to prevent them from backing up with a mouth full of hay all the time, and dropping most of it on the ground to get trampled.
Having the goats and cattle eating from the same feeder is not as simple.

[minnikin1]

I saw a nifty do-dad the other day, but I didn't see how you get the bale on it.

Basically, it's one old wheel with a piece of pipe sticking up about 5 feet out of it.
(the pipe is placed as if it were the axle.)
The top of the pipe is pointed. You basically just impale a square bale on this long pipe that sticks straight up. (the pipe runs throught the lenght of the bale)

You can lean the thing over and roll the bale where you want it and the animals just self feed.

[chas]

I had an extra metal pipe gate that fit the length of the feed area lying around.So when the horses broke up my wooden rack I just mounted it to the wall and throw the hay down from upstairs.The hay that gets pulled out becomes bedding for goats and horses.
This winter I will put a cow panel inside to make it harder to pull hay out onto the floor.
The spacing between the pipes was around 8 in.The panels are about 16 ft. with 6x6 holes.
Chas