HAY RACKS

With the needs of large amounts of storage required when hauling horses, hay racks have become a very popular option on most horse trailers these days.  As the name implies, the primary use is for hauling hay down the road but is not limited to only hay.  Other uses include water caddy placement, bucket storage, feed storage, bicycle transport, luggage racks, wood shaving bag storage, and generator placement to name a few.  There is normally 3”-4” of clearance from roof to bottom of hay rack so pop up vents on roofs are not blocked.  Air does still flow between bottom of hay rack and top of roof.

Installation

Installation is fairly simple on the all aluminum hay racks manufactured by Platinum Manufacturing.  They are constructed of aluminum tubing and a prepainted white aluminum skin on the sides.  If the trailer is an all aluminum type trailer, we will weld this to the trailers existing roof rails and weld the ladder as well.  If it is a steel trailer, we bolt both hay rack and ladder to the trailer. 

Open Hay Racks

As labeled, this hay rack has no lid and is “open” on top.  It does have solid aluminum pre-painted white sides and the floor is constructed of 1” cross members-it does not have a solid floor.  Items stored and transported on this hay rack will need to be strapped down.

Pods

Sometimes called a “Pod”, or “enclosed”, hay racks with lids are available.  The bottom and lid are constructed at the same time to fit each other so lids can not be purchased separately nor can they be made to fit and existing open hay rack. Although they are not completely water proof, they do keep most of your items dry and you don’t have to worry about strapping these items down while transporting.  These normally have small hydraulic cylinders on each side to hold the lid open while loading.  Two latches hold lid closed and can be locked too.  On all of our trailers with pods, you will also notice a tread plate landing mounted directly behind the pod (approximately 4’ deep) to walk on while loading your hay rack and a small rail around the perimeter of the walk way. 

Ladders 

Ladders are also constructed of aluminum tubing and are normally welded on the trailer in four places-two at the bottom and two on the top rail.  On steel trailers, we bolt these ladders to the trailer at top and bottom.  Ladder placement can be on either side of the trailer (curb side or street side) or on the rear tack door or horse compartment door.  If placed on the side of an 8’ wide trailer, please note the ladder can not be as deep (not as much room for your feet).  Due to DOT regulations, the ladder can not stick out further than the fenders, which are 102” wide.  One other popular option is the recessed ladder as seen below.  This feature must be done at the time of trailer construction and usually costs around $500.

Sizes Available

Widths are available in 7’, 7’6”, 8’, and 8’6” widths.  If measuring for your trailer, please measure across the roof from outside of top rail to outside of other top rail.  Lengths are available from 6’ to 14’ lengths and the length is the amount of storage inside the hay rack, not the total length.  Most of the Platinum hay racks are actually 12”-18” longer than labeled.

Weight Capacities

6’ open hay rack 900 lbs        
8’ open hay rack 1,200 lbs         
10’ open hay rack 1,500 lbs        
12’ open hay rack 1,800 lbs        

6’ enclosed hay rack  1,200 lbs
8’ enclosed hay rack  1,600 lbs
10’ enclosed hay rack 2,000 lbs
12’ enclosed hay rack 2,400 lbs

Pricing

Due to previous bad experiences with freight companies, we no longer ship hay racks-they seem to get damaged 100% of the time.  We do sell them separately at our locations and we do install them as well.  Here are estimated prices you might expect and this does include ladder installation:

6’ open hay rack          $750    (    $850 installed)
8’ open hay rack          $1,000  ($1,100 installed)
10’ open hay rack        $1,250  ($1,350 installed)
12’ open hay rack        $1,550  ($1,650 installed)

6’ enclosed hay rack   $2,000   ($2,200 installed)
8’ enclosed hay rack   $2,250   ($2,450 installed)
10’ enclosed hay rack $2,500    ($2,700 installed)
12’ enclosed hay rack $2,800    ($3,000 installed)