How to Interpret Your Hay Test

Buying hay for your horse can be a challenge whether you buy it a few bales at a time or purchase a years supply when it becomes available in the summer. Supply price and quality have always been important parameters to consider when buying hay for horses but now more than ever before horse owners are becoming aware of the importance of the nutritional components of the hay they feed. Many hay dealers will provide you with a laboratory analysis for the hay they have for sale. If they do not or if you grow your own hay youll need to sample it yourself for lab analysis.

TAKING THE HAY SAMPLE
The first challenge in getting hay analyzed for nutrient content is obtaining a representative sample. Ideally sampling hay involves the use of a hay drill suitable for coring sufficient bales to get a representative sample. Sampling at least 6 to 12 bales off the stack is recommended to get an accurate sample. While coring bales with a proper hay drill is recommended it is possible to take grab samples handfuls of a number of bales at least 10 to 12 different bales if you dont have a drill. Whether you have cored bales or taken grab samples the hay you have collected off the stack needs to be well mixed in a large pail and then subsampled. The subsample should be of a sufficient amount to fill a large Ziploc bag.
When you have your hay sample ready it should be packed in waterproof packaging and either personally delivered or sent to the lab of your choice. Make sure you have included your name and phone number or email address so that you can be notified when your hay analysis is complete.
Analysis options can include wet chemistry or NIRS Near Infrared Spectroscopy either of which would be suitable for the analysis of horse hay for the basic nutrients such as moisture dry matter crude protein nonstructural carbohydrates NSC and sugars.
Analyzing hay for trace minerals should always be done using wet chemistry methods. While NIRS can be highly accurate for determining most nutrients in a hay sample it isnt recognized as being sufficiently accurate for trace mineral analysis.
As Fed versus Dry Matter Basis
At first glance your hay analysis report may be intimidating. You will see a large collection of numbers usually arrayed in two columns labelled as As Fed and Dry Matter Basis.