Hay Feeder Make Over to Reduce Waste

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  Goat's are picky eaters!  I swear!  No one ever believes me when I say this...

"Oh, but I thought goat's will eat anything?"
"Ya right, a goat tried to eat my shirt at the petting zoo."
"Oh really?  Then why did my goat rip apart that tarp, shred up my barn records, and then swallow my shoe lace?"

Ok, I get it.  Goat's chew on A LOT of stuff, but they aren't actually ingesting 99% of it.  I promise you!  Goat's are very oral.  Just like a baby likes to touch and grab everything with their hands and then shove it in their mouth and lick it, a goat explores their world by grabbing things with their lips, tasting it, and then 99% of the time, spitting it out.  They are also very determined... When they see something they DO want to eat, they will pretty much rip apart whatever is in the way.  Say for example a tarp that is covering a bale of hay... Or perhaps they have been presented with a flake of alfalfa but they just want to eat the leaves... Unfortunately, this behavior has given the impression that they will eat anything, and it also creates a lot of destruction and waste.  To further illustrate my point I have created a little inner monologue that might occur in a goat's brain at feeding time...

"Oooooo, alfalfa!  Yum, Yum, Yum, Yum!  Gimmee, gimmee, gimmee, gimmee!  Munch, munch, munch... Oooo wait a sec... That alfalfa leaf was way tastier than that alfalfa stem...  I'll just eat all of those first, and then I'll eat the stems later."  (This is where the goat proceeds to rip apart the flake of hay, discarding the stems and eating only the leaves.  They fill their belly and go about their daily business of grazing and meandering the pasture.)  "Ok, I think I'm ready for some more hay.  Oh wait, I already ate all the leaves, and now all the stems are on the ground.  I couldn't possibly eat something that has been on the, *gasp* GROUND!  No way, not even if my farmer walks over here, picks it up, and puts it back in my feeder will I even consider touching that foul ground hay!  She's just going to have to bring me an entirely new flake, and I'm going to sit here and yell at her until she does."

And that, my friends, it how it goes down... every day.  With hay prices in the $18-$21 per bale range in our area, I had to find a solution, and fast!  Hay waste is a big problem that many goat owners face.  I know one goat owner that doesn't ever put bedding down in his barn stalls because he knows that within one or two days the floors will be covered in wasted hay anyways.  Just look at all the waste in the feeding area's of our pasture!

<<<<  Not OK!

Not OK!  >>>>

So the other day, me and the hubs visited a ranch sale, and happened upon that big awesome hay feeder you see in that first picture there.  It's a large feeder designed for horses, and it is supposed to be mounted to another piece with a huge tray for catching waste, and long legs that raise it up to the horse's heights.  Thankfully the people at the sale were selling the two pieces separately so we only bought the rack piece.  We considered buying both but we would have had to cut the legs down to goat height, and we decided that having the waste catching tray was actually a bad idea because our goat's seem to always want to put their front feet up on things.  Since our pasture is rather steep, I could just see this thing toppling over on a goat.

So are you curious how much we paid for it?  $20!!!  So awesome, considering this single piece can rarely be found for less than a couple hundred dollars.  So the way we got just this piece of the feeder to work was by mounting some 2x6 wood pieces to the bottom to give it some stable feet to stand on. 

You can also see in the above picture that I made one other little modification to reduce hay waste.  Like I said above, this feeder was designed for large livestock, and so the rack bars have large spaces between them for a horse to fit it's nose through.  A goat certainly doesn't need that much space, and in fact will take full advantage of that room to pull hay out of the feeder and throw it on the ground (much like they were doing with the old hay feeder...).  So all I did was measure out a piece of some remnant no climb fencing that we had lying around that would fit on the inside of the feeder, and then used zip ties to secure it in place.  

The feeder has been out in the pasture for a couple days like this, and it's been working great!  The openings on the wire fencing are only 2"x4" and so there has been very little waste as the goat's can only pull out small bites at a time.  They really love to use the new feeder as a back-scratcher too.  Win, win!

So I hope that this little project of mine inspires you to seek solutions to your problems with frugality and creativity.  It is so unnecessary to buy everything brand new, and in fact so many people who are new to the homesteading lifestyle fall into the consumerist trap.  Be patient, go to ranch and garage sales OFTEN, scour online listings, and take a hard core look at something even if it's not 100% exactly what you need.  Often times there are quick fixes and/or modifications that can be made to make it perfect.  Don't get in over your head with any DIY project though!  Here are a few common sense tips when buying second hand farm equipment:

1.  Avoid serious rust like the plague, unless the item is 100% free and you are OK with having to replace it in the near future.  

2.  Always avoid worn edges that have become sharp or pointy even if the item is free.  You definitely do not want one of your kids, yourself or an animal getting hung up on that.  If you are a goat keeper you want to especially be mindful of anything that may potentially cause harm to an udder.

3.  Consider how and where you will mount the item (if it's that sort of thing) and make sure it is compatible with the type of fencing or walls you have.

4.  Be willing to haggle with people and/or ofter items for bartering!  Often times sellers price their items expecting to make deals with people.

Hope that's useful!  Enjoy!