Understanding Netting Sizes

Whether you're new to Handy Hay Nets or a long-time supporter of our slow feeding system, you've probably noticed there are a rather intimidating amount of hay nets to choose from. Even for the seasoned slow feeding veteran, it can be difficult to choose a hay bag system that will work best for your farm.

Most people consider slow feeding to be a one-size-fits-all concept. We have discovered, however, that there are a great variety of factors to consider when choosing the right system for your animal. The age of your critters, the time of year, and the coarseness of your hay all have an influence on how comfortably your animals can self-regulate their own hay consumption.

If you find your animals are trashing their bags, gobbling hay, or continue to have weight problems, then you may want to reevaluate your hay and netting combinations.

Finding the right combination of hole and bag sizes to use with which animal, during which season, and with which hay can be a brain-tangling experience. So we've put together this guide to help demystify the process of setting up an ideal slow feeding hay net system that will work for you, your farm, and your animals.

Let’s start with netting hole sizes.

2” Netting

This is the netting to start with for most draft horses or other large breeds such as warmbloods and senior horses. You can also use this hole size for cattle year-round.

Hay Types: grass hay, timothy hay, alfalfa and all others.

2” net with coarse hay

1.5” Netting

This is the best netting to start most horses. Young, old, skinny, new to slow feeding horses, or ones that have feed-related anxiety, high-performance athletes, during trailering, and ideal during the cold fall and winter weather. It can also be used in the same way as 1” netting for drafts and larger breed horses. Cattle can do well on 1.5” netting if you only have a few cows.

Hay Types: all types, best for fine hay and straight alfalfa

1.5” net with course hay

1” Netting

This hole size is perfect for the avid slow feeder horse that requires further slowing down of their hay, or if you own a small pony or miniature donkey or horse. This is a good hole size for smaller animals like rabbits, or to start mini's, donkeys, mules, alpacas, sheep, goats and lamas that are on grass hay (use a larger hole size for pure alfalfa to limit damage to your nets). 

Hay Types: medium to coarse grass hay

0.5" Netting

0.5" hole size is perfect for donkeys, mules, small ponies, miniature goats, and minis trained to hay nets who are in a relaxed environment.

Hay Types: medium­ to coarse

*DO NOT USE FINE HAY OR SOAKED HAY WITH THIS SIZE OF NETTING

0.5" net with medium/coarse hay

It’s very important to be flexible with the hole size when using slow feeder hay bags with your animals. This will prevent damage to your nets in the long run. When the weather turns ugly, your animals may be cold and require more food to stay warm, particularly if they don’t go into a barn at night. Stress is another factor to keep in mind; trailering, competing, and intense training all require a larger hole netting with your regular hole size. No need to give them their whole ration in it—just a flake or two!

Here at home when winter comes we have used 7 bags for our 2 horses, who are kept together in a dry lot—that’s 5 medium-sized bags in the 1" netting, and 2 medium bags in the 1.5” hole size. With this setup we keep our horses moving around the lot, and even with an easy keeper, we have hay left in the 1.5" at the end of a long winter night!

Some reasons for animals damaging nets could be that the animals have not been properly introduced to slow feeding systems or health issues. For help with transitioning to hay nets, check out our Getting Started resource pages for horses and farm animals.

Want to download the information? Check out our printable pdf versions of all our resource pages.

Still feeling unsure or just want some guidance? Reach out to contact us with any questions. We are happy to help!