NO Raufomat on a metal rake!

Standard metal hay racks/feed walls with feed barriers, safety feed barriers, or palisade barriers were not designed for time-controlled horse feeding, nor are they suitable for this purpose due to the potential hazards involved.

With the Raufomat feeding system, our goal is NOT to sell as many Raufomats as possible at any cost, but rather to help horses enjoy healthy AND safe feeding.

We manufacture Raufomat systems only for wooden hay racks!

If you don't have a suitable wooden hay rack yet, we're happy to email you an illustrated building guide for a wooden hay rack, including material lists and sketches, as a free service AFTER you've placed a binding order for a Raufomat.

Why metal hay racks are not compatible with Raufomat:

Everyone is familiar with these very space-saving, four-sided metal hay racks with 12 barred feeding places. We have now received countless requests to"raufomatize" such hay acks.

Potential hazards posed by feed barriers and palisades:

The general risk of injury is inherent in the design of standard metal hay racks available on the market. Unfortunately, experience has shown in the past that it cannot be completely ruled out that a horse may get its hooves, legs, head, or neck caught somewhere.

In conjunction with automation, this would be an absolute disaster for the animal. In the event of entanglement, in the worst case scenario, the horse would be unable to free itself for hours, which would be hay rack completely unacceptable risk in connection with an electrically powered hay rack .

Even if some people now claim that they have never experienced anything like this in 20 years of keeping horses and that this is all nonsense, we must counter that we personally know of two cases from our immediate circle of acquaintances.

• In one case, after long, costly stays in the clinic and a great deal of loving care and patience on the part of the horse owner, the gelding was able to be used again as a leisure riding horse.
• In the other case, after a long period of sick leave, the mare was fortunate enough to find a home with a horse lover as a disabled companion horse.

Missing hay rack side walls:

The upper frame of the hay rack would be too low when hay rack is open hay rack i.e., in the folded position. The risk of a horse hay rack into the hay rack or otherwise getting a leg stuck cannot be completely ruled out.

Such a scenario, combined with a sudden activation of the automatic system, would be disastrous.

Trailer hitch:

This must ALWAYS be removed, otherwise the hay cover move up and down freely. In addition, any protruding parts are not only an obstacle for the hay cover, but also a source of danger for the horses.

Lack of personal space:

When a hay rack hay rack hay rack x 2hay rack 12 feeding places is fully occupied, the horses inevitably have to stand very close together, head to head, if they do not want to remain hungry.

This narrowness is incompatible with the Raufomat philosophy.

Anyone who takes the time to observe horses in their free time will notice that although they sometimes voluntarily stand very close to their friends, this is not always the case. Especially during mealtimes, you can see that they often maintain a certain polite distance without this leading to wild fights or biting.

It is worthwhile to train your own eye and pay attention to the very subtle signs that horses give. A glance at a horse's face tells us whether it is feeling well or not.

Regardless of the hay rack type of feeding, we recommend always providing more feeding places than there are horses.

Here's the thing about all kinds of metal hay racks – even if a metal pro custom-makes them just for a Raufomat:

In the case of a metal fence, considerable time and skill would be required to cover the outer posts and side walls with non-conductive materials.

Time-controlled hay racks ALWAYS require electricity (12 V for the Raufomat Solar and 230 V for the Raufomat Smart). Metal conducts electricity! Wood does not. This means that wooden hay racks pose significantly less risk to animals and humans.

Conclusion:
In our opinion, metal hay racks used in conjunction with Raufomat feeding systems have only disadvantages compared to wooden hay racks.

The safety and well-being of your horses is our top priority!