The Slow Feed Hay Net I Wish I Had Bought Sooner

I wasted about a third of my hay for three winters before I did anything about it. The fix turned out to be a Tough 1 Slow Feed Hay Net and one eye bolt in the wall of the shed. Not a third of my hay budget. A third of the hay itself, dragged out of an open rack by three does, sniffed at, and stomped into the bedding where nothing would touch it again. I knew it was happening. I kept telling myself that was just what goats do.

It is not what goats do. It is what goats do when hay is easy. An open rack lets a doe grab a mouthful, decide the next mouthful might be better, and pull the whole works out onto the floor. Multiply that by three does and twice a day and you have a shed you fork out every morning and a hay bill that never quite adds up.

I tried the cheap fixes first, because that is my nature and Ron will tell you the same. I built a wooden feeder with the slats close together. They worked the hay out between the slats anyway. I bought a nylon hay bag from the feed store with holes about the size of my thumb, and Pepper had a tear in the bottom of it inside a week. Then a neighbor down the road said two words to me over the fence: slow feed.

I bought the Tough 1 in November 2024. It is the plainest thing in that shed: a net, two-inch knotted openings that hold their shape instead of stretching out into one big mouth, and a large size that fits plenty of hay. The listing calls it a horse product and names camping, hiking, car and outdoor among its uses. Mine hangs in a converted three-stall shed for three Nigerian Dwarf does, which tells you the size is forgiving.

How I hung it matters more than which one I bought. I put a sturdy eye bolt in the shed wall at about the height of the goats' heads, clipped the net to it, then pulled the bottom up and tied it off so the net hangs in a bundle instead of dangling to the floor. No goat can get a leg into it, and since my does are disbudded there are no horns to catch. If yours have horns, hang it higher and watch for a few days before you walk away.

Wasted hay dropped by roughly half. I did not change anything else in that shed that month, so I know where the credit goes.

The first week the does were annoyed with me. A slow feed net makes them work for it, and work is not what a goat wants at seven in the morning. Hazel stood and looked at the wall and then at me, like I had personally insulted her. By the second week she had her nose in it before I finished filling it. Filling is once a day in winter now, and less often than the old rack ever was, because more of it ends up inside the goat.

Two things I would tell anyone buying one. Buy an actual net, not a bag with holes punched in it. The knotted polyester on this Tough 1 has been through two winters and the openings have not sagged. And do not hang it loose. Half the value is in the bottom being tied up so the hay stays in a tight bundle and the goats eat from the sides instead of pulling it down onto the floor.

One thing I did not expect. The does are quieter at feeding time. With the rack they crowded and shoved each other off it. With the net they spread out around it and settle in. Small thing. It is the small things that decide whether chores take twenty minutes or forty.

I still fork the shed out most mornings. Goats are goats. But I am forking out bedding and droppings now, not hay I paid for, and the difference over a winter is the kind of thing you notice when you are the one stacking bales in the barn. It also gives the does something to do, which sounds like nothing until you have had a bored doe on a wet week in February.

The one honest knock I have is that filling a net takes longer than dropping a flake into a rack. Two extra minutes if you are being neat about it. I would rather spend the two minutes than watch a third of my hay go into the bedding.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you have goats pulling hay out of an open rack and trampling it, you do not need a barn rebuild. You need to change how the hay is presented. Hang a slow feed net from an eye bolt, tie the bottom up, fill it once a day, and give it two weeks before you make up your mind, because the first week they will act like you have ruined their lives. That is the whole thing, and I could have saved myself three winters by hearing it sooner. Two cautions. If your goats have horns, hang it higher and watch them for a few days. And if a goat goes off feed or starts losing weight, that is a vet call, not a hay net question. I am not the person to ask about a sick animal, and I will say so every time. Mine have done well on it, and that is all I can honestly tell you.