- set of six 2"x2" 6' long treated timber

- set of siz 1"x4" 6' long treated timber (which I had cut in half at the store)

- two 2'x6' oriented strand boards

- one 2'x4' oriented strand board (cut into two 2'x2' sections at the store)

various screws and angles, hand saw.

I framed out the bottom first. The illustration shows how I made the frame a bit longer than 6' by adding one of the cross bars onto the end of the 6' timbers. I used the 2"x2" timber for the bottom frame. I fixed all corners with angles and screws. Then I screwed on the long side walls (red in the drawing), the short side walls next. Then I turned the whole thing over and fixed on the 1"x4", 3' long boards as legs. I found that 3' long legs made the whole thing stand up too tall for our ponies, and ended up chopping the legs off about 4" below the feeder bottom. Turned it over again and voila! I got two 2'x3' galvanized metal mesh sheets from the gardening store to use as a bottom. Will let water through, but holds the hay. The feeder has survived the first night, but I may come back and screw some more supports on to make it more sturdy. Will see how it goes.

View of frame in the bottom, with mesh grid as base.