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My friend Patty did send me an email with the following
content:
I've never believed that two big meals per day is healthy
for horses, but until I kept them at home, it was never practical to feed
more than twice a day. Once I brought them home, I began feeding 6 smaller
hay meals a day. I felt that this was better for the horses, but still
not perfect (luckily my husband works from home and could do the mid-day
feedings). When Erin forwarded the link, I was awed by Ove Lind's simple
feeders. His concept is brilliant and exactly the way that I wanted to
feed but had not thought of myself!
I built our version of Ove Lind's Swedish feeder in the breezeway of my
barn. The horses eat from the breezeway. The hay is stored behind the
feeder. The feeder itself cost about $35 to make. I bought a used "wire
deck" with 2x4 inch mesh openings. The wire deck is used with steel
pallet rack systems. Wire decks come in all shapes and sizes and can hold
2500 lbs. Think of Home Depot and how they store and display all of their
product. They use pallet racks with wire decks. My wire deck is 48x60
inches and cost $21 from Craigslist. The rest of my feeder is a $2 2x4
piece of wood and a $12 sheet of plywood and some cable ties. I attached
the wire deck to my existing preifert pipe panel with cable ties. I cut
two 3x3 ft squares from one end of the piece of plywood to make the ends
of the feeder. I nailed on a piece of wood to each end at a 45 degree
angle to support the sloping board. The sloping board is a 3x5 ft. piece
of the plywood. Two edges of the wire deck have a "waterfall"
which is a curved edge. The plywood ends fit nicely into the waterfall
area. The whole feeder can be taken apart and moved to another location
very easily. The feeder is 5 feet long so both horses can eat together.
The feeder does not need a lid because the wire deck is tall enough so
they can't reach through the pipe panel into the top.
At first, I was afraid that Cinco, the haflinger, would park himself infront
of the feeder and not move all day until the last scrap of hay was gone,
but that is not the case. He'll eat for a while then go mosey around and
come back and eat some more at leisure. Baron, the old percheron/thorobred
cross is getting the hang of it. They eat side by side with no fighting.
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