What is hay testing and how do you get one and do it

[OhioRiver]

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[Jogeephus]

Local extension office will probably have it done for you and give you directions on how they want you to collect the sample.

 

[WHITEHAWK]

http://soiltesting.tamu.edu/files/Forageweb2.pdf

 

[Running Arrow Bill]

An EXCELLENT Lab for Hay, Forage, Water, Environmental testing is SDK Laboratories, Inc. in Hutchinson, KS. Very reasonable prices, lots of instructions, etc. Turnaround time for us has been about 10 days.

Their website: http://www.sdklabs.com

Hope this helps!

 

[msscamp]

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Hay testing is the act of collecting random, equivalent samples, putting them in a plastic baggie, and then sending them off to a testing lab that will send you back a report that tells you the protein, levels of various nutrients, and the total digestible nutrition in your hay. As far as who to test it, and how to collect it - check with your county extension office, or your local university. Both should be able to give you and address and a phone number. Call the phone number for the particulars of collection, then send the sample to the address.

 

[hayray]

I test mine by using a coring tool that I put into a cordless drill. I randomly sample the bales from the lot of hay I want to test by drilling into about 10 randomly selected bales. My coring tool has a canister on it that collects the samples and then I put them into a one gallon plastic baggie and go to the UPS store and ship them to Litchfield Lab in Litchfield, Michigan. They then e-mail me the results in about 1 day, works out great for me. They have a web site. The test cost me about $10. There are several different test you can get depending on what type of livestock you are feeding but basically you get Crude protein values, Total Digestable Nutrients (TDN), and digestible energy and different fiber values that measure the balk of the hay as well as the non-digestible fiber components.

 

[OhioRiver]

thank you for telling me that

I test mine by using a coring tool that I put into a cordless drill. I randomly sample the bales from the lot of hay I want to test by drilling into about 10 randomly selected bales. My coring tool has a canister on it that collects the samples and then I put them into a one gallon plastic baggie and go to the UPS store and ship them to Litchfield Lab in Litchfield, Michigan. They then e-mail me the results in about 1 day, works out great for me. They have a web site. The test cost me about $10. There are several different test you can get depending on what type of livestock you are feeding but basically you get Crude protein values, Total Digestable Nutrients (TDN), and digestible energy and different fiber values that measure the balk of the hay as well as the non-digestible fiber components.

 

[hayray]

thank you for telling me that

I test mine by using a coring tool that I put into a cordless drill. I randomly sample the bales from the lot of hay I want to test by drilling into about 10 randomly selected bales. My coring tool has a canister on it that collects the samples and then I put them into a one gallon plastic baggie and go to the UPS store and ship them to Litchfield Lab in Litchfield, Michigan. They then e-mail me the results in about 1 day, works out great for me. They have a web site. The test cost me about $10. There are several different test you can get depending on what type of livestock you are feeding but basically you get Crude protein values, Total Digestable Nutrients (TDN), and digestible energy and different fiber values that measure the balk of the hay as well as the non-digestible fiber components.

I got a list of were to buy different coring tools from my test lab. You should use a coring tool because it grinds the hay up into little pieces. It is not recommended to grab hand fulls of hay and send them in, they do charge extra to grind it up. However, if you want pasture forage samples you just cut off handfuls using siccors to cut samples and they call that a scissor cut method.

 

[TexasBred]

Ohio it's pretty easy to make yourself a hay probe. Buy a 24" length of 3/4" stainless steel. You can either grind one end down to where the edge is sharp all around the hole or just have it cut at a 45 degree angle. Put a leather glove on your hand and you can shove it deeply into a role of anykind of hay. Pull it out and use a dowel stick to punch the sample out of the pipe and into your sample bag. Get a good representative sample from several different rolls of the hay. One of the best labs I've use to test my hay is Dairy One in New York. They give a very detailed report and you can request specific things be tested as well. They do both NIR and wet chemistry test.

 

[OhioRiver]

Thank you for telling me that.

Ohio it's pretty easy to make yourself a hay probe. Buy a 24" length of 3/4" stainless steel. You can either grind one end down to where the edge is sharp all around the hole or just have it cut at a 45 degree angle. Put a leather glove on your hand and you can shove it deeply into a role of anykind of hay. Pull it out and use a dowel stick to punch the sample out of the pipe and into your sample bag. Get a good representative sample from several different rolls of the hay. One of the best labs I've use to test my hay is Dairy One in New York. They give a very detailed report and you can request specific things be tested as well. They do both NIR and wet chemistry test.