DIY Hay Manger, for about $2ish

[WallTenter]

Have you ever had this frustration... ?

Yes I did too. The plastic hay mangers that were in every other way fantastic would simply let the rabbit push the hay out onto the ground, unless I had another cage butted up right against each other (in which case it was difficult to just get the hay in there.

But I could not find another hay manger that I liked, and some of them were awfully spendy. Of course if it was just one or two rabbits that would be no problem lol... SO how to make one that was safe for my rabbits, inexpensive, yet would allow me to put a good amount of hay in there and not have it fall out.

I tried making several out of just hardware cloth, but by the time I trimmed up all the edges etc it was taking a while and I was still not 100% happy.

I make a lot of farm things from totally unrelated things at the dollar tree and saw these wonderful cooling sheets - cookie cooling sheets - and thought "YES!"

And I always have little bits of hardware cloth lying around that aren't big enough to do much with but I keep them for just these kind of projects. You could do the same thing with any wire - you could even use another sheet (though it might stick out a bit, but oh well).

Zip tie it on the front, I cut it so that I didn't have to zip tie in the back...

AND LOOK!

A full three times the hay, it does not come out, the bun eats from it just like normal. There are limitations - if these get wet they may rust around the chincy welds, but not really much of a problem.

So each package comes with two of them at $1, that's $0.50ea, and I added another $1.50 for the hardware cloth and zip ties. Not nearly that much, but better safe than sorry ​

 

[zee]

Great job! Thanks for sharing.

 

[CWD]

Very good.
I need to make some of these

 

[mystang89]

Nice, thanks.

 

[PistolPackingMomma]

Very cool! Thanks for the tutorial.

 

[Diamond]

LOL cute visuals!

I just use scrap from building cages..... wire the bottom directly to the cage (J clips work best, this makes a hinge type design in which the feeder opens at a right angle to the cage), then apply either a spring or a bungee cord..... and viola, hay manger. The compression from the spring/ bungee helps keep spillage at a minimum. Usually it is the very fine bits which end up falling through, and these compost quickly. Unhook the spring, manger swings open for filling, add hay and refasten spring/bungee cord.

At first I built them so I could open the cage door and fill them from the inside, now on my newer cages the hay manger is on the outside of the cage for easy filling.

 

[AnnClaire]

Nice racks, and outstanding "off label" use of the wire racks!!

I can't remember who posted, but I use the wire from cutting the door ... bend the wire into a half circle, bend the bottom wires to make a floor, bend the top wires to the outside and out of the way, and wire it to the outside of the cage. I just hated to see so much wasted wire, so now, no waste

I also have a 4"x20" length from cutting down the door wire, so I bend them into little trays for the mineral chunks off the big mineral block. After this block, I am going back to the spools, but will make a little "holder" to keep the block off of the cage wire from left over wire ... something that I can just pull out and throw away when the salt starts eating it up.

 

[cowgirl9768]

So do your rabbits pull hay through from the outside of their cages? That's what the picture looks like. I never though of doing it that way but it would be much easier to load that way!

 

[AnnClaire]

Cowgirl, yes, they can pull right through the 1"x2" openings And it is soooooo much easier to fill from the outside than noodling your arm in, up, over the top of an inside rack

 

[WallTenter]

Yes putting hay inside the cage is a pain and leads to way more hay being in your catch trays, having it outside makes chores a whole lot faster too and they have no problems pulling it through. I do however put some on the inside for babies up to 6 or 7 weeks old.

 

[Diamond]

LOL I do the same thing for the little guys.... as soon as they start crawling out of the nest box they like to 'explore' hay, long before they will eat pellets. So I throw a few handfuls in until they figure out how to pull it through the wire.

I am slowly making all my hay feeders "outside" loaders.... along with other modifications to the cages... makes feeding so much easier.

 

[fuzzy9]

Thank you for sharing these.......I have a particular doe I need to try something for, she's such a pig with her hay! :evil: