The Natural Feeder
Mark Olson Known defective product, false promises and verbal abuse
- 11-27-2012
- 12
I bought 2 Natural Feeders from a local distributor this past summer. They seem to be a safe and effective solution overall... I needed large capacity as the 2 horses using it should eat about 3/4 bale each per day per a nutritionist (my vet agrees). The horses caught on very quickly and like the
feeders (although even with the small grates, they need to be filled 2-3 times daily each
which is disappointing... They are eating about 2 bales daily, total). They are a great
combination of hay protection and restriction, while keeping hay available to the horses
24/7, although I did not expect to have to fill them this often (not what I was told).
BUT,
they have undergone redesigns lately, and worse, a change in ownership, and the
new owner is extremely unethical. There was a divorce so of course there is animosity
that shouldn't affect me. My particular feeders came with thinner, weaker, brittle grates
which started breaking almost immediately. The previous owner promised they would be
replaced just before the change and the new owner gave me false promises and strung me
along for MONTHS. It was suggested that I use a table saw (that I don't have) to cut the dimensions down so it would work better. He does not answer my contacts now; I warned him that if there was no
resolution that I would spread this warning far and wide. He was verbally abusive to
someone who advocated for me and some distributors are no longer dealing with him. Plus,
instead of 3 grates, you get only 2 now for the same price. The older style of grates
were much different (I saw them in person) and the really bad ones were only sold for a
short time-he acknowledges that there were failures in the redesign, and these issues
were fixed.
Feel free to contact me for more-after spending almost $900 I expected
better. I have 6 grates that aren't long for the world, and the small ones (the ones I
really need at the moment) are unusable with breaks almost every place possible (I can show
photos). The horses are very gentle with the feeders, never frustrated. It's a shame that
this person did not care about customer service. An ethical company
would have recalled these grates. Visa offered a partial chargeback but I did not want to hurt the distributor who did the transaction.
Company: The Natural Feeder
Country: USA
State: Iowa
City: Story city
Address: 3921 Christytown Road
Phone: 5152901136
Site: thenaturalfeeder.com, powertothehoof.com