31/05/2025
Let's Talk About Perspective: Haynets, Risk, and Responsibility 🐴
A post was shared today about a horse who sadly died after getting a foot caught in a hay net. This was a sad tragedy, and our thoughts are with the owner 💔 This is not the first time that haynets have been criticised on social media. For those of us who use them daily, it can be incredibly upsetting. But before we rush to judge, we must step back and look at the bigger picture.
Haynets are used by thousands of owners across the UK—to manage feeding, reduce waste, support trickle feeding, and encourage chewing. Their presence in stables, on track systems and in paddocks across the country is widespread. And when you consider how many are in use every single day, serious incidents are incredibly rare by comparison.
Haynets serve a real and valuable purpose.
Horses wouldn't naturally consume hay at the rapid rate they do when it's offered loose. Eating from the ground often doesn't engage their incisors in the same way, meaning less natural tooth wear. More importantly, loose hay tends to run out well before the owner returns, leaving the horse—a natural trickle feeder—without forage for hours. That's a real risk: stress, gastric ulcers, and even colic.
Used appropriately, haynets mimic natural foraging. They promote tugging and tearing, slow intake, and help regulate weight—especially for horses prone to laminitis, where managing forage can be life-saving. That's not to say loose hay is wrong. We use it too—for our horses who need extra help maintaining weight through winter or scattered through the woods as enrichment. But, like with most things, it's about balance. Is the rare chance of a haynet accident really greater than the daily, ongoing risks of obesity, ulcers, or colic from poor forage management? Probably not.
The incident that sparked this discussion was, tragically, an accident. It wasn't the result of cruelty. It wasn't neglect. Horses are powerful, sensitive, reactive animals. Most owners work incredibly hard to minimise risk. But the reality is—we can't eliminate it entirely. Nearly everything we do with horses carries some level of risk.
🔹 In 2024, 58 horses were killed on UK roads, and 97 were injured (BHS data).
🔹 Horses have died during turnout, in competition, or just from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Do we stop riding? Stop turnout? Ban hacking altogether? If we did, we'd face an epidemic of obesity, metabolic disease, and laminitis from lack of exercise and enrichment. Instead, we do our best. We make informed, thoughtful decisions. We weigh the risks—always with our horses' welfare at heart.
In our own herd, we've found that the more freedom we offer, the fewer injuries occur but accidents are an inevitable part of keeping horses. We owe them lives filled with meaning, not just safety. So let's be kinder. Let's support one another. Let's choose compassion over criticism. Because at the end of the day, most of us are just doing our best to give our horses the safest, healthiest, and most fulfilling lives possible.
And if horses will always find a way to injure themselves, we have to ask:
Are we really saying we shouldn't be keeping horses at all?
Or should we simply stop the blame culture—and carry on doing the best we can with perspective—a balanced, informed understanding of risk versus benefit in how we care for them.
📷This is our herd, in their favourite spot on the track, eating their hay.
