I started soaking Scottie’s hay this winter after Scottie devloped a cough from eating dry hay 24/7. I HATE soaking hay, especially in the winter. The water is cold, my hands get chapped and carrying the heavy hay across the yard is hell. Luckily I was emptying his hay out on the floor, so at least I didn’t have to lift and tie up wet, heavy haynets. But I still started looking for other solutions. While researching the pros & cons of soaking hay, I discovered a few products that would make soaking hay so much easier. After a bit of consideration, I treated myself to a Haycube.
What is a Haycube?
I think the best way to describe a Haycube is as a portable haybar that doubles up as a hay soaker. It makes soaking hay, transporting soaked hay and feeding soaked hay easier.
Key features of a Haycube?
Wheels:
The cube comes with 2 wheels that allow you to easily wheel the cube around. But only having 2 wheels means it doesn’t move by itself while left standing.
Plug:
No tipping required to empty the water out of the cube once you have finished soaking your hay. Just remove the plug & wait for all the water to drain out.
Lipped top:
Unlike feeding out of a hay bar or a bucket, the Haycube has a bit of a lip at the top. This makes it difficult for the horse to just pull all the hay out onto the floor.
Trickle Feeder Option:
For those who have greedy horses or horses who need their hay intake slowed down, 3 different grills with varying sized holes can be purchased to help control your horse’s hay intake.
Safety Bar:
All Haycubes come with a safety bar. They recommend this to be attached to the wall and the cube hooked over it to avoid the horse pushing it around the stable & potentially causing a problem.
Range of options:
The Haycube comes in 2 sizes, the Original and Mini. The original is taller and can take 15kg of dry hay. The mini is shorter, more suited to smaller ponies and can take up to 10kg. The cube also comes in 10 different colours, so you can match it to your horse’s usual colour scheme.
Main Benefits of a Haycube
Easier Management
The biggest benefit of the Haycube is how much easier it is to soak your hay. The other benefits to your horse are achieveable using a mixture of methods suck as soaking hay, using small holed haynets and feeding from the lowered head position. But the Haycube can combine all of those elements into just one process and product.
Respiratory Health
The combination of soaked hay and the lowered feeding position both aid with respiratory health in our horses. Soaking hay dampens down small particles in the hay, reducing the chance of them being inhaled while the horse is eating. When horses eat with their head lowered their airways are more likely to clear themselves.
Digestive Health
The rounded lip of the cube slightly restricts how quickly a horse can eat their hay. This slower eating rate helps digestive health in 2 ways:
- The horse usually takes longer to chew & swallow his feed, often creating more saliva, all of which helps with digestion.
- Horses who take longer to eat their hay are less likely to finish their hay and be left with nothing for long periods of time. Horses are designed to be constantly grazing, long periods without forage can increase the risk of stomach ulcers.
Weight Management
Soaking hay can help reduce the calorie content in the hay, meaning you can keep your horse’s belly full with less calories. This combined with some of the trickle feeding benefits of the Haycube make it a valuable tool in weight management.
Other Benefits
Feeding from a lower head position is often considered better for a horse’s posture than pulling from an elevated haynet.
My honest opinion of the Haycube
I absolutely love it. I hate making haynets, I don’t have to anymore. I just wheel my Haycube into the haybarn, fill it with loose hay before wheeling it to the drain for soaking. Once soaked, I don’t have to push over heavy buckets or lift heavy haynets. I just pull the plug and let all the water drain out. Then once the water has drained, I don’t have to carry a heavy haynet across the yard. I can just wheel the cube right into my stable.
I have the Original size Haycube and find it plenty big enough for my needs. I can soak Scottie’s night hay with room to spare for extra hay if needed. I think the original haycube should be plenty big enough for the average horse.
I haven’t installed the safety bar in the stable. My main reason being that Scottie is sometimes in the stable without the haycube – while his hay is still draining etc. And he might have a section of hay on the floor in the meantime. I’m a bit concerned he would scrape himself on the safety bar while eating off the floor. We have been using the cube for over a month now and Scottie doesn’t seem to move it around too much, so I’m not concerned currently.
The only other issue I have is that the cube does take a while to drain. Over winter I soak & drain my hay in the mornigns while I’m mucking out and leave it draining throughout the day. However, now we are getting into the warmer months, I’m soaking & draining my hay in the evenings. It takes a good 30 mins to stop dripping. If I’m in a rush I have to put it in the stable before it’s fully drained. Then I either need to put the plug in & accept that the hay at the bottom is going to be sitting in water, or leave the plug out and accept that there will be some water leaking out into my stable. It’s a minor issue but a future improvement could be a removable grill at the bottom of the cube, slightly lifting the hay out of any remaining water in the cube.
Last Updated on 12/10/2025