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I first met Consuela – aka “The Fat Pony” – in 2007. She had just weaned her first foal and was in decent shape. I had the pleasure of leasing and riding her for a year, until I got pregnant with my own first baby. A few years passed and during these years… Consuela got fat. Very fat. She was living in a small herd of draft mares and was low in the pecking order. The mares were fed twice daily, but on an irregular schedule. Consuela learned that it was best to eat as much as possible as fast as she could when there was food in front of her – and she became a Fat Pony!
While she had always been a stout mare, she now looked as uncomfortable as she was spherical! Through a series of fortunate events, I officially became the proud, yet concerned, owner of Consuela. It was clear that she had to lose weight since several serious metabolic health issues had me worried. To add to the challenge, this horse was now seriously skilled at inhaling hay, the equine equivalent of a middle-aged Golden Retriever! In order to slow her down and facilitate immediate weight loss, we started feeding her frequent, smaller meals in hay nets.
This method of feeding was inconvenient, tedious, and time consuming – but it produced results. Consuela lost close to 150 pounds over the course of 2 years. Now it was time to simplify her upkeep. We tried free choice hay feeding with 1” full bale hay nets, but Consuela was determined and her hay consumption actually increased! We were advised that she would eventually slow down and “get it,” meaning normalizing her hay intake after realizing that she would never run out of hay. However, Consuela did not “get it,” and after only 6-8 weeks, with the pounds stacking back on at a rapid pace, both her farrier and vet begged me to change my approach. We returned to the frequent, measured feedings and she started losing weight again. So, we were back to inconvenient and time consuming multiple measured feedings. There had to be a better way!
Here is where the path to the perfect hay net started. During the process of loading many, many small hay meals into many, many hay nets, day after day after day, we had plenty of time to think of solutions to improve the process. We needed a net designed to be faster and easier to load, but still safe and easy to feed on the ground. This would require a design change, as all the nets we bought from other places required a time-consuming step of tying the cords into braided chains and tucking them inside the nets for ground feeding, and attempting to untie a muddy or frozen braid was even less fun. Since Consuela’s hay often had to be soaked, we needed a hay net that would not rot or mildew after spending many hours wet every day. There were simply no other hay nets on the market that met our needs!
We are proud to introduce you to our Fat Pony Feeder, The Perfect Hay Net!
Our mission is to produce slow feeding hay nets and automatic hay feeders that will make life easier for humans and healthier for their horses. Our products can be used to replicate a natural grazing environment as closely as possible, even in a boarding or selfcare environment.