You know how important it is to provide your horse with good nutrition, so you and your veterinarian have carefully selected your horse’s diet. However, good feeding management requires that you consider not only what your horse is fed, but how. Because a horse with an inadequate feeder runs the risk of wasting precious nutrients or even ingesting unwanted sand or fecal material, choosing appropriate feeders for hay and grain is of utmost importance. The decision, however, can be overwhelming. There are so many types of hay racks, mangers, and feed bins available, how do you know the best one to choose? What factors should you consider?

Read on for tips on picking the right feeder for your horse’s needs.

Feeding Hay in Stalls

One of the most difficult decisions is how to feed hay to horses in stalls. Because horses often make quite a mess of their stalls, whatever feeding method you choose should keep them from mixing their hay with their bedding and should minimize the ingestion of dirt, sand, and fecal material. Moreover, because the leaves are the most nutritious part of the hay, you want to make sure that they are not being wasted