Hay Analysis - when and where

[lizziebell]

Never thought about having our hay analysed, but we have far too much cut this year for our own horses consumption and a friend is considering taking some off our hands for her liveries, but some of her liveries have asked for an analysis.

Those of you who get you're hay analysed, who do you use and at what stage do you get this done, as assume the contents change over time. Do I send off a sample when it's first baled - wait a specified amount of time (days/ weeks/ months) - or just before my friend collects it ?

What am I ideally looking for in the results. Sorry if these are stupid questions.

Thanks

 

[SEL]

Forage plus do it (but they are expensive). If you look it up on their website they give quite a lot of info on how to take samples

Do the liveries mainly want the sugar / starch analysis?

 

[Britestar]

Our local country store will do it.Do you have anything like that near you?

 

[lizziebell]

Forage plus do it (but they are expensive). If you look it up on their website they give quite a lot of info on how to take samples

Do the liveries mainly want the sugar / starch analysis?

Thanks, I'll take a look. Yes, I think a couple have very good doers.

Our local country store will do it.Do you have anything like that near you?

Thanks. I'll ask.

 

[supsup]

Just to add on - there are different types of analyses. The cheap ones (~£10) generally use near infrared spectroscopy, which means light shone on the sample is measured, and nutritional content is estimated (energy, crude protein, "NSC" aka non-structural carbs, sugar). This is only an estimate, where the light's spectrum from your sample is compared with a database containing info from samples that were measured with wet chemistry as well as light. If your sample is very different from the types of samples used to build the database, the results could be misleading. So I'd always consider a NIR analysis to be more of an indication - high energy/quality hay vs. poorer quality - but wouldn't bank my laminitic's health on it when judging sugar levels.
To get more accurate sugar and starch levels, and to get mineral levels, you have to do wet chemistry on the sample, which is more expensive. This is the type of analysis that Forageplus offers. There's also a good lab in the US (Equi-Analytical) that does it, and probably more around the country. But sending plants to the US is a faff (paperwork), and some of the labs attached to local feed stores etc. are specialising in livestock (cattle, sheep), and calculate the energy content for ruminants, not for horses.
In short, my tip would be to ask what sort of analysis is performed (NIR or wet chemistry), ask what "sugar" means on the analysis (water soluble sugars? ethanol soluble sugars? all non-structural carbs? These are not all the same when it comes to what a laminitic can tolerate), and whether results are appropriate for horses.
In the end, even if you pay quite a bit for the analysis, it will only add a few pence to each bale, and I expect most people would rather get a more reliable analysis. At least I would.