feeder designing

[sammyd]

Our goats seem to like to use alfalfa hay for bedding. they pull it out of their racks and stomp it down.
Currently the hay racks are fronted with 2x4s spaced just far apart enough for their heads to get in.
I have read about keyhole feeders but have never seen any dimensions for the cutouts. Anybody know about them?
Or could I staple some fence behind the 2x4s to help hold the hay in a bit better?
I put a bale of straw in the pen last fall, haven't added any since and the pack is about 2 foot deep from all the hay they've wasted. I put up 140 bales of bedding 2 years ago and at this rate it'll last forever but the hay guy will be getting rich.

[Minelson]

I got this idea off this forum and it works great! DIY: Hay Feeder

[jordan]

I use two hog panels attached to 2x4's at the ends and 1 flat at the bottom so it is 4 inches wide. A slice fits snuggly between the two panels. I have it about 12 inches off the ground for my ND's and they can't get more than their noses in the lower portion of the combination panels. There is still some waste but nothing like it used to be.
I heard of a couple of people who used keyhole feeders and kept having problems with injuries as one goat would ram another whose head was in the keyhole and never saw it coming.

[Tam319]

We've built feeders using 4x4 inch mesh used for concrete construction. They can just get their noses in and waste is minimized. We built them really large (big enough for round bales) but they also work for throwing in quite a few alfalfa square bales at once too. A person could easily build a smaller V-shaped feeder out of the panels to just accomodate square bales for a few goats.

[Nancy_in_GA]

We have tried 3 designs and this has worked best so far to reduce waste.

We have two vertical "walls" with a catch basin at the bottom between them. The inner panel holds the hay flakes, and has openings only big enough for the goats to get their noses in. Tacking up fencing like you suggested inside your feeder would be perfect for this. The second wall out front has large openings but small enough to provide a barrier so the goats can't climb up into, or get their feet in, the catch basin.

Like this:

hay |_| goat

When the goat pulls the hay from the inner panel, a lot of the dropped hay falls in the catch basin. They can then eat the dropped hay out of the basin. (But of course they will never eat this dropped hay until all the hay has been ripped out and sorted over. )

Ideally you could make it so you can add the hay from the opposite side of where the goats are, but unfortunately we didn't have room for this in our barn.

Our goats always want to grab a mouthful of hay and run around to make sure someone else isn't getting something better, so I don't think you will ever be able to eliminate all the waste.