Metal Detector Advice

[jacketpotato]

Hello - i'm new to here and I hope you can help.  I want to buy a metal detector - primarily to detect pieces of chicken wire in hay, which we have
to feed as the animals will not eat the alternative I have bought in.  So its finding a solution that does not involve the proverbial needle in a haystack hunt!
The hay will be in small already sifted and checked by hand - about 1kg in weight.  I have been informed by our local shop that detectors do not
pick up wire easily - as the hay is not dense and the wire is in pieces about the size of your hand, do you think a detector will pick up
the metal?  If so what is a starter model and price looking like?  We have a large area of woodland - so it would be interesting to have
a detect around.  Many thanks for your help.  jacket.

[Tascio]

There are specialist metal detectors used in food preparation industries to detect small pieces of metal, but these machines are quite large and quite expensive. Take a look at this one on eBay:

What kind of budget do have and how much hay in total do you need to detect?

[jacketpotato]

Hi Tascio thank you for your quick response.  Its about 2 tonnes of hay which is about 100 small bales - so not enough for the large machine you suggested.  I'm looking to
spend under 300.00ish.  The hay comes off in slices about 2ft square and about  4" thick, its not dense and we think the smallest piece would be about a golf ball size.  I saw something
called a DR.OTEK for 149.00

[Tascio]

One possible solution to your problem is a hand held pinpointing probe like this one https://amzn.to/3b6yZFl with this you could go through the hay with the probe by hand, it might be sensitive enough to pick it up. [ad]

Another possibility with your available budget would be a C.Scope CS4PI like this one: not really suitable for land based metal detecting, it is designed with beach metal detecting in mind, but it might be sensitive enough to detect the the chicken wire (you can get really good prices on this detector if you shop around, I just posted this link as an example).

Your problem is a bit of a head scratcher, and I am really not sure what would be the most effective solution.

I am afraid I am not familiar with the DR.OTEK so I can't comment on it.