In the beginning . . . . Back in the winter of 2004, Gilly Metherell was getting frustrated by the waste of hay and time involved in feeding her horses in their field.
She observed the horses were happy to pull things out from the base of the hedgerows - grass or anything else that took their fancy.
Putting the hay under the hedge might protect it from the weather and treading but what about fields with no hedge?
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 Prototype 01Concentrating on the idea of preventing treading and dunging at least, Gilly fixed old car tyres together to make a container in which the hay could be placed and be protected.
This splendidly Heath Robinson affair did sort of work. Strangely, the horses seemed as happy to poke their noses through the car tyre centres as to take the easier looking route of leaning over the top.
Gilly asked her husband, Richard, to make a tarpaulin top so that the hay could be kept dry and the horses eat through the tyre apertures. |
 Protoype 02Being a relatively skilled bodger, Richard decided to go for a redesign.
He used plastic boarding to make a cylindrical bin with tyre centre-sized apertures in the side, a floor and a lid. This was in its way revolutionary. Gilly's bright idea and Richard's bodging created the first Large Hay-Hutch.
From this point on the saving of hay, labour and pasture damage was huge. Richard made more, including smaller ones for use in the stables.
We would sometimes find the odd cheeky rabbit in the ones in the fields - hence the name "Hay-Hutch".
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Supply and demandAs the fields at East Hill Farm (where Richard and Gilly live) were populated with Hay-Hutches, it was not long before a horse owning visitor (our equine vet) asked whence we had obtained them.
When the vet discovered that we had made them ourselves, she insisted on buying some. East Hill Farm was set, albeit temporarily, to become a Hay-Hutch factory! |
 From bodging to precision manufactureIt was clear that fine tuning of the design plus the achievement of a safe, affordable product would need the help of professionals.
We sought out the manufacturing technology used to make heavy duty grit-bins and plastic cattle troughs called "rotational moulding". This allows high flexibilty of shape and the use of durable and safe plastic construction materials.
We used the flexibilty of design to make a number of changes:
The small and medium were made conical in shape. This makes them more stable to reduce the liklihood of toppling by being kicked or blown by the wind.
We could avoid completely the catches and clasps which the home-made design required and thus avoid any danger that a head collar or bridle might get caught. |
Off to BirminghamIf you want to find a factory to make things, Birmingham has got to be the place to look.
In that fair city we found a family owned rotational moulding factory. As it happened, the owner was something of a farmer himself and understood what we needed in terms of robustness and stability. He was also able to recommend the type and thickness of plastic required and where we could get moulds made in which to cast our first professional Hay-Hutches. |
From then to nowGilly's horses took to the new style Hay-Hutches straight away and the bodged prototypes were pensioned off. |
