SARAH: "I keep hearing about the importance of having hay tested
so you know nutrition content."
I think she means she keeps hearing that from you,
because we do talk about that quite a bit.
"How do you interpret the results of a hay analysis?"
Aw, and then she says, "Thank you for all the videos.
They're super informative and helpful,"
with two little heart emojis.
I think you're the big one, and I'm the little one,
because you're doing more of the work, and I'm just over here
making dad jokes.
DR LYDIA GRAY: I like the fact that she's
noticed that there's several of us
out there saying hay analysis is important.
I think the thing that I neglected to mention
was that while it's a great idea to get a hay analysis,
they're very challenging to read.
Like, I don't read my own.
But I send it to a nutritionist.
I give it to the people who formulate our ration balancer.
I work with FeedXL, plug it right in there,
and even talk to some local vets.
So hay analysis-- and I'll go through some terms here.
And then you'll see.
You'll be like, "Oh, I don't want to do this."
But still have it done, but then go
to an expert to have it interpreted and to use it.
So there's a couple things that you can look at it
and you'll want to pick out and go, oh, this and that.
But for the most part, the really nitty-gritty detail
stuff, leave it to the experts to do.
So things you'll see on there.
You'll see dry matter versus as fed or as sampled,
and that's just the moisture content.
So the dry matter has the water pulled out,
and that's the more apples-to-apples number that we
like to compare between feeds.
That's the one that you'll want to look at.
Digestible energy, which is often attributed to DE,
that is just--
so some of it is going to get used by the horse,
and some of it is going to get pushed on through
and not used by the horse.
And so the DE is the part that's used by the horse, the energy
or the calories.
You'll see crude protein in a percent.
And that's an estimate, actually,
of the protein based on the nitrogen levels.
What it doesn't tell you--
see, hay analysis is fascinating,
because it tells you a lot, and it doesn't tell you a lot.
SARAH: It's very coy.
DR LYDIA GRAY: It raises more questions than it answers.
But it tells you the quantity of protein but not the quality.
So we care about the quality.
So while it's handy to know, do I have an 8% crude protein
or do I have a 12%?
And then I'd know, do I need a multi-vitamin,
or do I need to step up to a ration balancer that
also includes protein?
It doesn't tell you the specific amino acids
that are in the protein, and that's really handy.
Crude fiber-- I think a lot of people
that have horses that are easy keepers, that
have equine metabolic syndrome, Cushing's Disease,
they're concerned about the sugar.
These fiber numbers are where they
focus a lot of their attention.
And I'm actually going to use my paper with this,
because if I get this wrong, it's really bad,
and somebody will tell me.
So you'll see things like ADF and NDF,
and that stands for acid detergent fiber
and neutral detergent fiber.
That's somewhat helpful.
It mostly tells you the quality of the forage
based on when it was cut, its level of maturation.
So the longer plants grow before they're cut, the more mature
they are, the higher those two numbers will be.
And then they're considered to be
a bulkier, more straw-like hay.
They're stemmier and harder to get nutrition--
SARAH: Breakdown.
DR LYDIA GRAY: --out of.
Right.
So those are the structural carbohydrates--
the cell wall, what allows plants to stand up straight.
The nonstructural carbohydrates are what
people are concerned about.
And so we have simple sugars.
And the other word for them, the fancy word
that you'll see on your hay analysis,
is ESC, or ethanol-soluble carbohydrates.
I can tell you, for this segment,
the screen is going to be full of numbers and figures.
SARAH: Because ESCs are an NSC, which is different than the ADF
and the NDF, because...
DR LYDIA GRAY: And WSC-- we haven't even gotten to WSC yet.
SARAH: We got a lot of things going on.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Right.
So when you add simple sugars and fructans, you get the WSC.
And when you add starch to that, you get the NSC.
So see how it got complicated.
The important thing is, when you get to those numbers--
those ESCs, WSCs, and NSCs--
they should be less than 10% to 12%
if you have one of those horses I mentioned earlier,
where you're watching the sugar.
If not-- and this is the main reason a lot of people
analyze their hay.
And you can just order a package that has this.
You don't have to have everything else.
You can soak your hay, not rinse it, soak it,
like for 30 minutes in hot water and 60 minutes in cold water.
SARAH: Not steam it.
It's different.
DR LYDIA GRAY: There is some benefit to steaming,
but it's different.
And they're beginning now to show that there's
some benefit to reducing the carbohydrate load and steaming,
but soaking is still the preferred method.
SARAH: Right.
Steaming better generally for reducing dust--
DR LYDIA GRAY: For breathing issues.
SARAH: --for allergies and things like that.
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So that's the carbohydrate.
That's really important for those kind of horses.
And then I think the other reason
that people analyze their hay is to know the minerals.
So one thing is to know, are you getting hay
that's low or high in selenium?
So do we have to supplement that?
Because it's got a narrower window
between the minimum and the maximum than some others,
but not scarily so.
I'm not sure if that's a word-- scarily-- but anyway.
And then you want to look at your macro-minerals
like calcium and phosphorus.
And hays will always be more calcium than phosphorus,
but it's handy to know the absolute number as well
the percentage, that ratio.
It should be somewhere between one and a half to one parts
calcium to parts phosphorus to two to one, so always higher
in a calcium-to-phosphorus.
What happens is, if it's just on that one-to-one border
and you add in some grain, which is higher in phosphorus,
then you maybe have an inverted ratio and trouble ensues.
So the macro- and the micro-minerals,
they're also important.
But if you subscribe to FeedXL, then you just plug all this in.
And then they'll do the-- ching, ching, ching-- math for you,
and you get an answer.
And then you know, do I feed a multivitamin?
Because here's the bottom line.
You want to use this to say, do I
feed a multi-vitamin, a ration balancer, a fortified feed,
a complete feed?
And are there specific areas that I
need to supplement specifically, or is
this hay not good because it's got too much sugar?
Those are the kind of things it tells you, but get some expert
help to analyze it, because it's hard.
SARAH: And then, how often do you do them?
If you get a new cut of hay, is doing it at the beginning fine,
and you can assume that to be true for the life of that hay
as you use it up in the barn?
DR LYDIA GRAY: Yes.
SARAH: How often are you doing hay analysis for Newman?
DR LYDIA GRAY: We analyze each cutting,
because each cutting is going to be different.
And so probably three times a year we get a new batch in,
and so that's how we do it.
And then we send that to the person
that formulates our ration, and he makes little adjustments.