Hay Analysis: Unless you test, it's just a guess!
How often do you have your hay analyzed? Do you base your judgment of hay quality on look and smell alone? Although look and smell are both good indicators that a hay may be old, stem-y or contaminated with weeds, you cannot tell hay quality based on appearance alone. As a matter of fact, when I hold workshops involving forage analysis, I always have the participants judge multiple samples of hay by how they look, smell and feel and they are always surprised when they see the analysis results. Hay that looks and smells great may not necessarily be that high in total digestible nutrients (TDN) or crude protein (CP) and the hay that is high in CP and TDN may not be the best looking hay. Unless you test, it's just a guess!
To get a full breakdown of a hays' nutritive value, you will want to have a complete analysis done on a composite of the hay. There are several labs that can do this for you. The NCDA will do a complete analysis for $10 a sample. This test will give you the basic nutritional information about your hay: dry matter, crude protein, NDF, ADF, TDN as well as some mineral amounts.
There are several private labs that offer a similar service. Some labs can even add on tests for things like non-structural carbohydrates (NSCs) for an additional fee. Here are several labs that do forage testing:
Dairyland Labs-https://www.dairylandlabs.com/
Equi-Analytical-https://equi-analytical.com/
Cumberland Valley Analytical Services-https://www.foragelab.com/
Weld Labs-https://weldlabs.com/feedforage/
For more information on how to test your forage or how to interpret the results, contact your local Extension Agent.
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