Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig hay.net. NS
Answer
hay.net. 5 NS ns2.hay.net.
hay.net. 5 NS ns3.hay.net.
hay.net. 5 NS ns1.hay.net.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.hay.net. 5 A 23.155.128.210
ns2.hay.net. 5 A 23.155.128.211
ns3.hay.net. 5 A 18.218.133.8
ns1.hay.net. 5 AAAA 2607:4980:0:910:250:56ff:fe88:d4a4
ns2.hay.net. 5 AAAA 2607:4980:0:910:250:56ff:fe88:9944
ns3.hay.net. 5 AAAA 2600:1f16:f33:7600:4ee2:ae4:7275:c2f2
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0