It was a busy weekend with lots of household chores and necessary paperwork (ugh). Aside from the normal weekend routine, Saturday morning we found two of my 9-month old goat kid siblings, Sweet Annie and Slader, STUCK in the hay feeder! Both their heads in one square of the hog panel. It was easy enough to release them, but they couldn’t figure it out for themselves. Fortunately, they suffered no apparent injury…perhaps the fact that they’re siblings and spent 5-months in the womb together helped ‘calm’ them during this potentially dangerous ordeal!
I always check the critters every night before I turn in, and have had a pair of goats ‘stuck’ once before…but twice is tooooooo close for comfort!
So, drop everything, we gotta fix this right now. We put our heads together and came up with a re-design of our original hog panel hay feeder. BTW, the hog panel version worked well, reducing the amount of wasted hay enormously – and kept the hay out of the sheep’s fleece.
Before feeder…
After hay feeder picture…
HA! FIRST, we need a DIVERSION! The problem with bottle-babies is that they’re ALL OVER YOU!
“Animal cracker anyone?” From left to right, Corriander, Sweet Annie, Clove Pink, Slader, and Brutus (my Pygora). THANK YOU KATIE!!!
As I was saying, here’s the re-designed hay feeder…
We removed the hog panel, added wood framing along the top and used wood screws to fasten evenly spaced 2X2 slats or rails (left-overs from a prior porch railing project) – ya know, recycle, reuse, make-do!!
No sooner had we attached the last ‘slat’, when Brutus came up to check it out and WALKED RIGHT THROUGH IT into the feeder!! O.K. We can fix it, just reduce the opening and add another ‘slat’.
All is well…..NOT!!! Sunday evening at about 6 p.m. I found Annie standing in the hay feeder!!!!
What…another slat? RIGHT NOW??? I sent Katie out in the barn to help hubby, cuz I knew better. Katie’s advice: It’s impossible to goat-proof anything! The slat spacing currently is about every 6-inches.
But, so far so good. No ‘stuck’ goats this morning!
Sheepy Hollow Farm 
Try the feeder panels from Premier 1 (they are build your own.) They have a 3×5 inch size for sheep and goats (recomended) and a 4×6 for large sheep and rams. We use them and they work great!
Thanks for the tip Kristy! I googled Premier feeder panels and downloaded a copy of their plans. I’m already planning yet another design modification for my existing and new feeders…
so far you have have the best photo and info on the internet. Glad I found you since as we speak I have a guy building a feeder!
Happy to help/share ideas! Happy Holidays!
Thanks for your pics and post re hay feeder for sheep. We are bringing home 3 Shetland sheep and I’ve been thinking about the feeder to keep their fleece clean. Your pic of the indoor feeder with slats was what I was thinking. We actually repurposed a deck railing with slats for our Dexter’s stall feeder and have a long length left over which we may use for the two sheep stalls. Can you tell me what the distance is between slats? Thanks!
Sorry! I just found your spacing! Thanks again for sharing!
Hi Dee!! Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner!! I measured the spacing this morning… basically 6-inches between rungs/slats. You must be very excited!! Happy fiber’n!1
You’re going to love your Shetlands!! All ewes?? Rams (and wethers) may require different spacing considerations if housed together! Have fun!!