hay rack design

Fascinating stuff, Tim, and very unexpected (at least to me). I was indeed thinking of building a linear bunk and will now build a circular (probably hexagonal) one instead.

Based on this paper, I have a greater understanding of why one of my oxen (the lower ranking one) tends to go in grab hay, pulls out, and wastes some hay. I had been using a linear feed bunk. It makes a lot of sense too that I would only have one ox that enters and exits, while the dominant ox just bellies up and chows down.

The head position aspect is interesting as well. There has to be loss associated with letting the hay rest on moist ground, but there are also losses from forcing cattle to feed in an unnatural “heads-up” position that seem to rival these losses. I would have never guessed that. I think that if I elevate the hay off the ground, I need to make sure it’s only a few inches.

Interesting stuff, and suprizing. It is good to rethink some basic assumptions.

PS. When I was worrying about bullying, my first thought was to make the linear bunk longer. In light of this paper and subsequent explainations, this would have likely not helped much (and might have hurt). Extending a linear bunk may have simply given space for the “bully” to hide in where he could feed comfortably and be out of the direct sight his “victims”.

Thinking about this more, I bet these lessons would apply to feeders/bunks designed to feed grain as well. IE, circular feeders in open areas might allow more undisturbed feeding of lower ranking cattle than linear bunks. The grain would have to be spread around a circle widely enough that one animal couldn’t access and guard the center. It would take alot of grain to fill a hay ring, but if the grain holder was shaped like a wide half donut (or a tractor tire cut in half), a relatively small amount of grain could be spread in a circle for all animals to access without bullying. Alternatively, one could simply hang buckets on the inside of a hay ring. Has anyone seen something like this?

Interesting. Restricting the bite size of animals with nets or bars seems to be an important feature with horse feeders. I could see that this could be beneficial for cattle too, although I would guess that the hole size/bar width would need to be somewhat larger for cattle due to a different mouth structure that seems less able to act as “treezers” to extract hay from small holes. Forcing cattle to take smaller bites could have positive effects beyond the hay wasting aspect in that hay consumption could be spread out over a long time, which would make intake more uniform and possibly reduce apparent hunger, boredom, and destructive behaviors. This could be very useful esp for mature oxen who are limit fed. I think this is a feature I will incorporate as well.