The 8 Best Hay Nets for Horses

Every hay net has the same weak point: the top, where you close it. Knots work loose, drawstrings disappear into the mesh, and cold fingers fumble the whole business. Hay Chix replaced the knot with a plastic toggle it calls a Hoggle and a rope you slide and half-hitch around it. Slide, hitch, hang, done.

We think that hardware justifies its price on its own, especially in February with gloves on. The net underneath is 1 3/4-inch mesh, hand-tied in Texas with fixed knots, and those knots are why we trust the hole size to stay put. The usual way a slow feeder stops being slow is that the mesh stretches and a horse starts pulling mouthfuls again. A half bale, four to six flakes, disappears inside.

The limit is what fits. Four to six flakes is less than the biggest nets in this group take, so it suits a stalled horse or two rather than a full barn, and it costs about what a two-pack of the cheaper nets does. For the person filling nets before work every morning, that trade is easy to make.

Forty-seven inches of net is enough to slide over a three-string square bale and pull shut, which makes this the pick if you want to load hay once a day instead of three times. It is a bag the size of a bale, not a flake holder pretending to be one.

The weave is knotless nylon, softer in the hand than knotted rope and with no hard lumps for lips and gums to work against. Filled, it sits flat against the hay rather than ballooning out, and the reinforced hanging loop takes a carabiner or a tie without sliding down.

The 1.5-inch mesh is the compromise. It slows a fast eater properly, and it is tight enough that some horses spend the first week objecting, pawing and nosing and walking away and coming back. Give it several days before you decide it is too small, because most of them settle into it and eat steadily.

The draw rope is short for a bag this size. Wrestling it closed over a full bale takes both hands and a shimmy, and a longer cord is the one fix this design still needs. Otherwise it is the most net for the money when your hay comes in squares.

Two nets for about the price of one is the entire argument, and it is a good one if you feed more than one horse or like having a filled net waiting by the door. Each is 40 inches with 2-inch openings, among the most open mesh here, so a horse is slowed down without being made to work as hard as the tightest nets demand.

The 6 mm hanging rope is thick enough to carry a full net without cutting into your hand, and the 520 hand-tied knots per net are set so the openings stay wide after filling. The maker's example fill is 11 pounds of hay, about 2.6 cubic feet. Where it annoys us is the top: the opening is small and the whole net is floppy, so stuffing flakes takes both hands and some patience.

Most hay nets are bags that swing. This one is a panel: a flat web front on a nylon body, held by straps and snaps that press it against a stall wall or a trailer divider instead of dangling from a single tie. A horse eats from it head-on, which is closer to grazing than a pendulum of hay is.

That flat back is why we like it in a stall. Nothing swings, nothing gets pawed into motion, and hay does not ball up in a corner where a horse cannot reach it. The front web is reinforced with overlapping nylon at the bottom, exactly where teeth work hardest, and the hanging straps and snaps are replaceable, so a worn strap does not retire the whole bag.

It is a stall or trailer bag rather than a day's hay for a hard keeper, and the six-month warranty against manufacturing defects is longer than anything else in this group offers. The parts most likely to wear are also the parts you can swap, which is the kind of thinking we want from a bag at this end of the price range.

Two nets in one pack, 42 inches each, with 2 x 2-inch mesh. This is the pair for feeding away from home, because one can ride in the trailer while the other hangs in the stall.

Each holds 3 to 5 flakes, and packing one with a half bale is realistic if you are heading to a show. The 2-inch mesh is the moderate middle of this group: enough restriction to slow a horse that bolts its hay, not so tight that a good doer gives up and walks away.

The 42 inches is measured stretched, and these arrive feeling smaller than the number suggests, closer to three flakes than five on a first fill. They relax into shape with hay in them, and the polypropylene rope and mesh soften with use, so give them a few weeks before you judge the size.

We rate them as the travel pair. Moderate mesh, quick to fill, and inexpensive enough that losing one behind a trailer is not a disaster. They are also the easiest of the tighter nets to load from a single flake, which matters at six in the morning in the dark.

Four nets and eight carabiners in one box, with the tightest mesh here: 1.2 inches empty, opening to about 1.5 inches once it is stuffed. If you are feeding a barn or rotating nets between stalls, this is the least expensive way to cover every door.

The rope is knotless polyester, softer in the mouth than knotted nylon, which matters for an older horse or one with worn teeth. Each net is 35 by 31 inches and takes four or five flakes, and the dual handle rings let you hang one flat against a wall or across a stall front.

Our reservation is how long they last. Some of these nets come apart at the stitching within a month, and the mesh is the lightest of the group. For a barn running four in rotation, with a regular look at the seams, that is an acceptable trade. For one horse and one net you want to keep for years, buy heavier rope.

Bloomoak prints a safety warning with the net, which is more candor than most of the picks here offer: no horned animals, no horses in blankets, no non-breakaway halters, and shod horses need the net hung beyond hoof reach or paired with a ground-level ring.

What you get is a pair of PE nets sized for bales from 36 x 18 x 18 up to 47 x 25 x 17 inches and extending 50 to 64 inches, so a whole two-string bale disappears inside one. The rings at the opening make filling and closing easier than a plain drawstring, and the rope ties off tightly at the ends.

The 1.6-inch mesh is the part to watch. Openings stretch with use, and a loop that slips free of its ring can leave a gap a horse will find within a day. Check the closures every time you fill and the net keeps working the way it should.

We see it as the bulk feeder of the group. For someone feeding square bales in a paddock, two nets that each swallow a bale hang a lot of hay in one trip, and the PE holds its strength when wet. It is simply not the net for a horse that dismantles everything it is given.