Hay Nets and Slow Feeders for Horses: Pros and Cons

by Kentucky Equine Research Staff

Hay nets and slow feeders offer clear health, welfare, management, and economic benefits but in some cases can create behavioral and musculoskeletal concerns. These management tools must be appropriately implemented to avoid introducing risks.

Researchers reached this conclusion after reviewing 23 studies on hay nets and slow feeders performed between 2009 and 2025.^* Those studies looked at the effect of hay nets and slow feeders on feeding behavior, welfare, and health outcomes. Hay nets refer to devices that feature various hole sizes that are hung from a stationary object, such as a stall wall, while slow feeders typically rest on the ground with small- to medium-sized openings.

“Hay nets and slow feeders have become increasingly popular to address welfare concerns associated with feeding. Such concerns include extending feeding times to mimic the natural grazing schedule of feral horses, gastric disorders, and metabolic diseases. Reducing forage waste is another reason these tools are used by horse owners,” explained Kathleen Crandell, Ph.D., a Kentucky Equine Research nutritionist.

Despite being popular for those reasons, scientific evidence supporting hay nets and slow feeders for these purposes is not consistent. A team of veterinary researchers conducted a comprehensive review of the literature to evaluate the effect of hay nets and slow feeders on feeding time, behavior, and forage and health management.

Although more data were available for hay nets than slow feeders, both showed beneficial effects.

Hay nets and slow feeders extend feeding times, benefiting gastric health.

Read more: Hay Nets and Slow Feeders for Horses: Pros and Cons

Daring Feats of Horsemanship Before the War

Revolutionary, That Is...

by Judith Martin Woodall

Part One

In the old part of the city, in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, there is a block on Elizabeth Street between Hester and Canal, lined with tenements, Chinese restaurants, and a parking garage whose 18th century past is evident only in the block’s boundaries. There was no Canal Street then; it was St. Nicholas or Pump Street. Hester was Eagle Street on some maps, and Bowery Lane, the block’s easterly boundary, cut through open land, farms, orchards, and estates, as it proceeded up the island. The nearby Bull’s Head Tavern,^[i] gave its name to the cattle markets, slaughterhouses and tanneries situated to the south of the block. The tavern, a stop for stage coaches traveling the Post Road from New York to Boston, was a popular gathering place providing important word-of-mouth advertising for the trick riders who found space nearby to set up their manèges.

Joseph Faulks

 

 

On December 16, 1771, New-Yorkers paid four shillings to head uptown to an “inclos’d Piece of Ground, at the Back [Elizabeth Street] of the Wind-Mill in Bowery lane,” above the slaughter-house to watch “Mr. Faulks, the noted Performer in Horsemanship,” ^[ii] canter into the ring, standing upright on the back of his horse while playing a French horn. The tune was not mentioned, but Faulks claimed “the Honour of performing before their Majesties, and most of the Nobility in England, Ireland and Scotland.” Never mind, that of late, their Majesties and most of the nobility had been losing their luster in the Thirteen Colonies.

Feats of daring on horseback are very nearly irresistible at one time in a rider’s life and have been a source of fun likely from the moment when Central Asians decided that horses could transport people as well as goods. Vaulting on and off horses was the first method of mounting and dismounting before stirrups became an essential piece of tack. More than two millenniums ago, Xenophon––Greek historian, general, philosopher, and author of On Horsemanship––described the correct method for a rider to spring onto a horse’s back. He recommended that all riders practice springing up from the near (left) and off (right) sides of the horse, a skill necessary for rapid mounting in the face of an approaching enemy and a horse cavalry requirement ever since.

From these early practices, vaulting at speed with more complicated movements became a component of cavalry exercises and existed alongside the elaborate and formal horsemanship displays in the courts of Europe in the 17th century. These two faces of horsemanship came to represent the training integral to the aristocracy and the forces they led––a marriage whose descendants are the equestrian sports of today.

  [i] The name lived on as the markets migrated uptown to the East Twenties, the area where major horse dealers maintained large stables. The original tavern was located at what is now approximately 50-52 Bowery in 2013.

  [ii] New York Journal, or, the General Advertiser. December 12, 1771.

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All photos courtesy of Judith Martin Woodall.

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