Horse eating from a slow feed hay bag hung in a stall

Learning Center · Feeding & Supplements

Why does a hay net need to hang at a certain height?

The right hay net height balances a horse's natural eating posture against the risk of a hoof catching in the mesh as it empties.

By The Schneiders Product Team · Updated September 29, 2026
8 minute read · Reviewed against our current catalog

The short answer

hang a hay net so its bottom, even when it sags empty, still sits above the point of your horse's chest. Lower than that, and a pawing hoof can find the mesh once the net is no longer full and taut. Higher than that, to be safe from hooves, and you force your horse's head up into an unnatural feeding angle that lets dust and seed fall into the eyes and airway instead of out through relaxed nostrils. The real fix is often not height alone but the equipment: a framed feeder that holds the net's shape as it empties, or a floor-level feeder with a solid base, removes the trade-off instead of trying to split it.

The two risks are pulling in opposite directions Why the emptying net is the real danger, not the full one Shod horses and small-hole nets raise the stakes The compromise that actually works The numbers on our own shelf

The reason this keeps coming up in barn conversations is that a net looks safe when you fill it and dangerous only once it's half gone. A full net hangs firm and stays well clear of a foreleg. The same net at 10 percent full is a loose, low-hanging bag of slack mesh, swinging at exactly the height a bored or itchy horse likes to paw. Reviews on our own feeders mention a horse getting a leg caught in a feeder hole, and it is almost always the emptying net, not the full one, that causes it.

Start here

The two risks are pulling in opposite directions

Horses evolved to eat with their heads down, grazing at ground level for the better part of the day. That posture lets saliva and mucus drain forward out of the nostrils, keeps dust and hayseed from settling into the lower airway, and lines the jaw up for the side-to-side chewing motion that wears molars evenly. Hang a net high enough to guarantee no hoof can ever reach it, and you take that posture away. Your horse eats with its neck raised and its head roughly level with or above its withers, which is closer to how a horse holds its head when alert or worried than when calm and grazing.

Hang the same net low, at true grazing height, and you solve the posture problem but reopen the hoof problem. A horse that paws at an empty or near-empty net, which many do out of frustration or boredom once the hay thins out, can hook a shoe or a foot through the mesh. The net's own slack works against you here: once it's not full, it no longer holds a fixed shape, and a taut design becomes a loose one that a hoof can push into and get stuck in.

How it works

Why the emptying net is the real danger, not the full one

This is the mechanism worth understanding, because it explains why so many well-intentioned setups still cause an occasional injury. A net's bottom position when full is not its bottom position when empty. As the hay disappears, the net's overall mass drops and the bottom hem sags lower, often by a foot or more, depending on how much slack the design allows. A net hung at exactly chest height when full may be hanging at knee height by the time it's down to its last few handfuls.

That is why the useful measurement is not "where does this net hang when I fill it" but "where does the empty net's lowest point sit." Products built around a frame, like the Schneiders Easy-Up Pro Corner Hay Feeder Frame with 1.5-inch Webbed Net, solve this directly: the steel frame holds the net's shape whether it's full or nearly empty, so the bottom of the net doesn't creep lower as the hay disappears. A loose hanging net or bag, by contrast, needs to be checked and re-hung as it empties if you want to keep its floor clearance consistent.

What that means for you

Shod horses and small-hole nets raise the stakes

Not every horse-and-net combination carries the same risk. A shod horse has a harder, sharper-edged hoof that can catch and hold in mesh more readily than a barefoot hoof, and a shoe's clips or nail heads give the mesh something to snag on that a bare hoof wouldn't. Small feeding holes compound this: a 1- or 1.25-inch diamond, the kind built for genuinely slow feeding like the Schneiders 1-inch Extra Slow Feed Nylon Hay Net, grips a hoof more tightly once it's in than a 2- or 3-inch opening does, simply because there's less give in the mesh to work a foot back out. That doesn't make small-hole nets unsafe to use, but it does mean height management and frame support matter more with them than with a wide-diamond net like the Dura-Tech Everlast 3-inch Poly Hay Net, where a hoof is more likely to slip back out on its own.

The details

The compromise that actually works

Rather than trying to find one perfect height that satisfies both the posture argument and the hoof-safety argument, most experienced barns solve this by changing the equipment instead of the number. Three approaches show up repeatedly:

Set the empty-net floor clearance, not the full-net floor clearance. Hang any net or bag so that its lowest point, once you push all the slack down by hand, still clears the point of the chest. This means the net will look higher than "natural" when it's full, but it won't drop into hoof range as it empties.
Use a framed feeder that holds its shape. A corner frame like the Schneiders 1.5-inch Knotless Hay Net for the Easy-Up Pro Fold-Up Hay Feeder keeps the net's bottom edge fixed by the frame rather than by gravity and slack, so an empty net doesn't sag any lower than a full one.
Go to a floor-level feeder with a solid base instead of a hanging net. A feeder like the Schneiders Easy-Up Pro Corner Floor Hay Feeder with Netted Lid keeps the slow-feed net at the top as a lid, with hay dropping into a solid-sided base below. Your horse eats with its head down, near true grazing height, and there's no low-hanging mesh anywhere near a hoof.

The numbers on our own shelf

The spread here is really a spread in how much the height problem has been engineered out of your hands. A loose hanging net puts the whole burden on you to check and re-hang it as it empties. A framed net removes the sagging problem but keeps the mesh. A floor feeder with a lid removes both the sagging and the mesh entirely, at a real cost difference. Which end of that spread makes sense for your barn usually comes down to how often you're realistically able to check and reset a hanging net, and how aggressively your particular horse paws when the hay runs low.

Feeder type	Example on our shelf	How it manages height as hay empties	Price
Hanging open net, no frame	Schneiders Easy-Open Knotless 1.25-inch Slow Feed Hay Net	31–32 inches tall when full; hangs from steel O-rings, so its low point when empty depends entirely on how it's tied	$44.99–$49.99
Hanging slow-feed bag	Dura-Tech Large Slow Feed 1.5-inch Net Hay Bag	32.5"H x 42"L; adjustable, detachable straps let you reset the bottom hem's height as the bag empties	$89.99
Corner-mounted frame with net	Schneiders Easy-Up Pro Corner Hay Feeder Frame with 1.5-inch Webbed Net	Steel frame holds the net's shape and position; the net's low point doesn't drop as hay is consumed	$139.99
Solid-base floor feeder with netted lid	Schneiders Easy-Up Pro Corner Floor Hay Feeder with Netted Lid	Net stays fixed at the top as a lid; hay drops into a floor-level steel base, removing low-hanging mesh entirely	$349.99
Wall-mounted rack with lid, no mesh	Schneiders Easy-Up Pro Mounted Flat Wall Hay Rack with Lid	27"H with bars spaced 2 inches apart; no net at all, so there's no mesh for a hoof to catch in as hay is eaten down	$199.99

Source: published product specifications for hay feeders and nets stocked by Schneider Saddlery, reviewed September 2026.

Mentioned in this entry

Schneiders® Easy-Up® Pro Corner Hay Feeder Frame with 1.5" Webbed Net View ›

Schneiders® 1" Extra Slow Feed Nylon Hay Net View ›

Dura-Tech® Everlast 3" Poly Hay Net View ›

Schneiders® 1.5" Knotless Hay Net for Easy-Up® Pro Fold-Up Hay Feeder View ›

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Quick answers

Frequently asked questions

How high should I hang a hay net?

Hang it so the bottom of the net, once you've pushed all the slack down by hand, still sits above the point of your horse's chest. That's the measurement that matters, because a full net hangs higher than an emptying one, and you want the emptying net's low point to still clear hoof range.

Is it bad for a horse to eat hay with its head up?

A raised head changes the angle dust and seed travel, letting more of it settle toward the eyes and lower airway instead of draining forward through relaxed nostrils. It also isn't how a horse naturally grazes. An occasional raised-head meal isn't a crisis, but it's worth avoiding as a horse's everyday feeding posture where you can.

Do shod horses need a different hay net setup than barefoot horses?

Generally yes, in caution level if not equipment. A shod hoof's harder edges and shoe hardware can catch and hold in mesh more readily than a bare hoof can. If your horse is shod, prioritize a framed feeder or floor feeder that removes low-hanging mesh, rather than relying on height alone with a loose hanging net.

Why does my horse's hay net keep sagging lower during the day?

Because a net's shape depends on how much hay is in it. A full net holds a taut form with its bottom well off the ground; as hay disappears, the net's overall mass drops and slack lets the bottom hem fall, sometimes by a foot or more by the time it's nearly empty. That's the point in the day when hoof-catching risk is highest, not when the net was first hung.

Are floor-level hay feeders safer than hanging nets?

For the specific risk of a hoof catching in mesh, generally yes, because a solid-base floor feeder with a netted lid keeps the net fixed at the top and removes low-hanging mesh from the equation entirely. They cost more than a basic hanging net or bag, and the trade-off is usually worth evaluating against how many horses and how much pawing behavior you're managing.