How it came about
We are enthusiastic horse owners ourselves and therefore know how much you often worry about your beloved horses. After our mare narrowly escaped laminitis in 2010 due to unrestrained hay feeding at a LAG boarding stable, and our gelding suffered from persistent metabolic imbalance, sweating, severe itching, and soft hoof soles due to the same very rich hay and grass feed, we have been trying to continuously improve the feeding of our beloved animals since 2010.
Unfortunately, our Icelandic horses are very sensitive to their diet, and even the leanest hay from unfertilized nature reserves led to recurring health problems despite regular exercise and hay net feeding. It was clear that a different feeding concept was needed. We also wanted to finally avoid the much too long breaks between meals at night.
Our goal was now to offer our four-legged friends small amounts of healthy, low-fat hay at regular intervals around the clock and to reduce feeding breaks to a maximum of three hours.
We actually wantedto buy an automatic hay feeder rather than build one ourselves. Ideally, it should be able to hold a whole large bale of hay and minimize the risk of injury to the horses. We could hardly believe that the search at home and abroad would prove so difficult. The few time-controlled roughage systems we found at the time looked high-quality, but either had poor ergonomics for the horses, did not have enough space for a large bale, or were completely overpriced.
We then worked together with our four-legged product testers until we had developed a very robust technical device, which we have been using day and night on our own horses since 2016.
At first, we could hardly believe how reliable our Raufomat would be, and in the early days we watched anxiously every time it opened and closed, wondering how long the construction would hold up, especially since our gelding sometimes used all his strength to resist the closing process. Nevertheless , there have never been any malfunctions—not even during a brief power outage, heavy rain, snow, or storm.
Incidentally, the daily feeding tasks were completely eliminated, which was an initially unexpected but pleasant side effect.
Since we are probably not the only horse owners desperately trying to keep their easy-to-feed and unfortunately very hungry horses healthy and happy, we decided to use our Raufomat and offer it to other horse owners. It is very important to us that the price-performance ratio is right for everyone involved, so that smaller open stables, sanctuaries, and self-sufficient stables can also use this feeding concept for their sick or "always hungry" horses without completely ruining themselves financially.
The Raufomat was created solely out of love for horses. It is our personal goal that everyone benefits from the Raufomat—both the horses involved and their owners.
It would be great if we could use the Raufomat can help ensure that fewer horses have to wait for their next meal with an overly acidic stomach due to the unfortunately still widespread practice of feeding them large amounts of food at once. Instead, they can be fed healthy small portions regularly, day and night.