Transcript:

[0:03]

To start off today, I’m going to tell a story. When I was a young faculty member, fresh off my PhD, one of the things I was doing was going around and talking to horse owners, and one of my favorite things to do was a hay demonstration. At this particular meeting, there were around 200 horse owners in the stands at a local arena, and I always loved to bring samples of hay and discuss why forage was so critical to the horse and their diet. One of the things I always loved to do was grab a flake of grass hay and a flake of alfalfa hay — the legume hay — and just show the differences in weight. I always talked about how we need to feed our horses by weight, not volume, and weighing out the different flakes of hay to show them that sometimes we’re overestimating or underestimating the weights of these flakes of hay.

[1:11]

The next thing I loved to do was bring different samples of hay and talk about the nutrients in them. On this particular day, I had some green hay — it was greener, so it was cut earlier and had not dried out as much — next to hay that was a little bit more yellow. Obviously, the 200 people couldn’t touch or smell the hay, but just by visually appraising the hay, I talked about the differences. I asked them, “Which hay would you choose for your horse, just looking at it?” and a lot of them pointed to that greener-looking grass hay. I told them this hay that looked a little bit older, a little bit aged, or yellower actually had more nutrients in it than the greener-looking hay.

[2:22]

Now, to jump forward a little bit — that greener hay was more mature, so it was an average, mature hay, whereas that yellower hay was actually an earlier cut hay, so it had more nutrients in it. After we were done, at the end of our talks, this wonderful little old lady, close to probably 80 years old, walked up to me and pointed to the green hay and said, “I would still give that to my horse.” I smiled at her and understood — she had probably been in the horse industry since she was a little girl. I said, “Yes, but if I showed you the hay test and the nutrient content of that hay, could I change your mind?” She smiled and said, “Maybe,” and walked off.

[3:21]

As a young educator, I realized you can’t convince everybody all the time, but it did instill in me how critical it is to also teach about hay tests and how that information is so important to your horse. That story is one that has always stuck with me throughout my career, in how we sometimes misunderstand when we’re choosing forages for our animals. When you visually appraise a hay, you have to look at more than just the color. We purposely did that — where we had some greener, older hay versus an earlier cut, more nutritious hay, but it had been seasoned and dried, so it had a little bit more yellowish to it — just to tell people: you can visually appraise hay, but unless you do a hay test, you really are not knowing what nutrients are in there.

[4:29]

Forage is the foundation of every horse’s diet — that’s what they eat the most of, that’s where they’re getting a lot of their nutrients, their energy, their protein, those essential amino acids, and then some non-structural carbohydrates (which we’re going to talk about) and other nutrients like minerals. But there are gaps, and I’m going to explain that here. Because wherever you go in the world — whether you’re in Australia, Mongolia, North America, South America, Europe — it does not matter where you live, there is not a forage on the planet that is going to have all the nutrients that the horse needs each day.

[5:21]

There may be some magical forage somewhere — we just don’t know where that is — but for the vast majority of the 60 million domestic horses, when they get their forage, whether it’s pasture or hay, and they are grazing or eating that hay, there are gaps in nutrients. So to start this off and give you an example of what nutrients are in that hay — or even where that pasture is growing — we’re going to stick mainly to this discussion about hay.

[6:00]

What nutrients are in that soil are going to determine what nutrients are in that plant. To give you an example, I’m going to go to the United States, because that’s where I grew up and did a lot of these talks. Let’s go to Washington State, where they grow a lot of alfalfa that is shipped throughout the U.S. I remember when I was in the Southeast United States — whether it was South Carolina or Florida — we got alfalfa in, and usually it was from the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, maybe New Mexico, because alfalfa did not grow well in the hot, humid climate of, say, Florida.

[6:40]

So in this example, let’s say we’re getting alfalfa from Washington State versus alfalfa grown in Colorado — both in the Western United States, not too far apart. In Washington State, those soils are deficient in the critical mineral selenium. Selenium is one of those minerals that horse owners are probably pretty familiar with, because we have a lot of deficient soils of selenium. As that plant grows, if there’s no selenium in the soil, there’s going to be no selenium in that plant. Or, if there’s very little selenium in the soil, there’s going to be very little selenium in that plant. So when we cut it, cure it, bale it, and feed it to our horses, they’re not going to get the selenium they need each and every day — a critical antioxidant for healthy physiology in the horse.

[7:48]

Now, Colorado generally has sufficient selenium in the soil, so the alfalfa growing there will uptake that selenium in the plant. You cut it, feed it to your horse, and they’re getting their selenium, or close to it, for what they need. Then you go, “Okay, well I’ll just source my hay from Colorado.” Well — Colorado soils can be low in zinc, which is critical for the hooves of our horse — just the hooves, healthy coat, and all of that — but zinc is high in Washington soils. So you can’t just say, “This hay from this part of the country is going to have every single nutrient in it.”

[8:35]

I’m just trying to demonstrate to you that it does not matter where your hay is grown, it’s going to be deficient in some of these micronutrients like zinc, selenium, or others. Also, hays and forages are going to be low or devoid of vitamins. So what does that mean? That means we have to supplement that somewhere in the horse’s diet. That’s why we supplemental feed them, either with bagged feed or — what’s highly recommended today — just a vitamin/mineral mix. Start there, then you can add things that the horse might need in their diet if they need more energy because they’re athletes or competing.

[9:27]

This is also why you probably want to speak with an equine nutritionist, because they can help you balance a diet. Getting back to hay testing — that’s why it’s very important that you test your hay often, and I’ll explain a little bit later what that means. So you know the nutrient content, and there are other reasons to do that. That goes for your pastures too, because if my horses are grazing in Colorado, great — they’re getting selenium, but not the zinc they need. Or if my horses are grazing in Washington State, they’re getting plenty of zinc, but not enough selenium.

[10:10]

So that is where your equine nutritionist comes in, and that’s why the equine feed industry — supplement industry — is worth billions around the planet, because we know you can’t just feed a horse only forage and meet all of their nutrient needs. Whether that horse is just out there as a companion animal, never ridden, or doesn’t ride anymore and is retired — any of that — from the maintenance diet all the way to our top elite athletes, they need supplemental feed or supplements like a vitamin/mineral mix.

[10:48]

Now, some of you may go, “What about wild horses? I mean, they’re fine, right?” Out in the wild, horses range far and wide, and their diets are not just forage. They will eat other things to try to make up some of those imbalances that they’re getting from the grass. Also, horses in the wild don’t live as long as our domestic companion horses. We know that on average, they live about eight years — depending on the study you look at. I know there are exceptions — some of these wild horses can live into their 30s, and again, they probably have wonderful diets and wonderful sources of nutrients around them — but when you look around the world, these feral or wild horses’ lives are a lot shorter.

[11:42]

They are also not putting humans on their backs, pulling carts, or doing the other things we ask of them. So keep that in mind — we’re asking horses to do a lot more work, generally, which is going to change their nutrient needs. And we’re also keeping them confined to an area where we’re either giving them hay or letting them forage on pastures or paddocks, wherever you live in the world. This is where that hay test comes in, because that is going to give you the information you need to balance your horse’s diet.

[12:24]

We’re going to go through how to get a hay test done and what it tells you. When you’re looking at balancing a horse’s diet, like — what about energy or calories? One of the things we’ve talked about in this podcast previously is that we tend to overfeed our horses. They get too much energy in the diet. We do have an obesity epidemic around the world with our horses, where they are overconditioned, and that’s leading to things like metabolic syndrome, joint issues, and shorter lifespans — even though they’re living longer in general because we’re feeding them better — but if we overfeed them, that can shorten their lives.

[13:10]

So energy is a big one. How much energy is in that hay? Because that is the majority of where the horse is getting their calories each and every day. Protein — we overfeed protein. In general, most horses are going to get their protein needs met with their hay. Now, if you take an average quality hay, it’s going to be a little bit lower in protein, but if you go to that nutrient-dense hay — let’s say an alfalfa/Timothy mix — it’s going to be high in protein.

[13:45]

Now, for some of you — have you ever walked into your horse’s stall and then that pungent ammonia just smacks you in the face? Their urine is really, really pungent. I’ve been in many stalls where it’s just like, “Wow, that urine really stinks; it’s really high in ammonia.” Generally, that’s because you’re feeding too much protein to your horses. When I used to go around talking to horse owners, I would say, “What’s your protein?” because when we talked about bagged feeds back in the day, it was like — are you feeding a 12% feed, a 14% feed, or an 18% feed? When we said percent, that was meaning how much protein was in that feed. Today, we’re a little bit wiser — we know horses don’t need that much protein.

[14:42]

Then there are the other nutrients, like I said — the minerals. That’s a huge one with our hay. And then the vitamins — we know hay is devoid or very low in some critical vitamins. The mineral content is going to vary depending on where that hay was sourced from — where it was grown. Hay grown in, let’s say, Queensland, Australia, is going to differ from hay grown near Toronto, Canada. The mineral contents are going to differ even though they’re the same species — if it’s Timothy grass, the mineral content is going to differ because of the soils.

[15:29]

So again, that’s where that vitamin/mineral mix comes in — to cover those gaps where you have gaps in vitamins and minerals. That’s why every horse in the world should have some supplemental feed — at minimum, a vitamin/mineral mix. That way, you’re ensuring you’re meeting all their needs. Like I said — Colorado: zinc; Washington State: selenium. Looking at hay tests, here’s some good news — they can be relatively inexpensive. Now, some hay tests are really cheap.

[16:02]

Back where I used to be a professor at the University of Florida, at our forage extension lab, it’s $7 per sample. Now, that’s just giving you some very basics, and to look at a full profile, you probably want to add on things like looking at the minerals in the hay — that can get a little bit pricier, up to maybe the $50 range, and I’m talking in U.S. dollars. It depends on where you live and the lab that’s doing it. But it can be relatively inexpensive, especially in the grand scheme of things, since you’re going to be balancing your horse’s diets.

[16:40]

We tend to overfeed our horses, so we tend to spend more than we need to. If I’m, say, feeding a high-quality bagged feed that’s $30 U.S., and the horse goes through it over a period of a few days, I’m spending — you know — a hundred, some people spend $200 or more just in supplemental feed because they’re like, “Oh, it needs a hoof supplement, it needs this supplement, it needs that supplement,” when really, you need to look at the hay first, find those gaps, and then just use a good vitamin/mineral mix. Then maybe you can add some things if your horse is an athlete — like electrolytes.

[17:23]

It’s not as difficult to balance a horse’s diet today as it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. And again, this is where an equine nutritionist can come in and help you — I’ll talk a little bit more about that later. If you’re overfeeding your horse and you cut back — well, it doesn’t need this expensive bagged feed — maybe instead of spending $200 a month, I’ll just spend $50 a month on a vitamin/mineral mix and my horse is covered. I have great-quality hay, I’ve got all their calorie needs met, I’ve got all their protein needs met, I’ve got some gaps here I’m going to fill, and my horse is doing great.

[18:03]

Especially if your horse is overweight — this is again where you want to know what the energy is in that hay. Maybe you are feeding too good of a quality hay — that nutrient-dense hay — or you just get wonderful hay and you’re giving them as much as they want every day, and they’re gaining weight like crazy. You’re like, “Oh, what can I do?” Well, if you can’t switch hays, you can start limit-feeding that horse — feed them smaller meals throughout the day or put them in a hay net to slow them down. There are different strategies. Again, this is where that hay test starts that process of, “Okay, how am I going to balance this horse’s diet?”

[18:46]

All right, so that’s the good stuff with hay tests. Now, the bad news: it takes time. It could be a few days up to two weeks. If you have some immediate issues — your veterinarian says your horse is metabolic, and you’ve got to watch what you’re feeding in your hay — you’re frazzled (and we’ve all been there with our horses), just be aware. That’s why you want to test your hay often, and I’ll explain that in a little bit. Not that if you get a shipment of hay and do a hay test, you need to go back next week and test it again — I’m saying when you get a new shipment in, especially when you source hay from somewhere else.

[19:29]

Or the hay comes, say, from — especially when I was living in Florida — let’s say our hay came from Georgia, which sometimes they grew some wonderful hay there, or we got some hay from Texas. Two different areas in the United States where that hay was grown, two totally different sources of nutrients. We needed to know what was in that, because it’s going to vary from even bale to bale — so I’ll talk about taking a hay sample — and then vary from load to load. That’s where that hay test can be a little bit frustrating for you, because the quality is inconsistent. You test it once, you’re like, “Okay great, I got the information,” but it’s going to change the next time you get a new shipment in, and you have to do it again and again. But that’s what you budget for, and again, that’s why they’re not hundreds of dollars — they can be relatively inexpensive.

[20:34]

Now, before we get to what a hay test tells you — where do you go? Where do I even think about sending a hay sample? Well, very easy — a quick internet search of “hay test near me” will bring up a list of services. I know I have listeners and viewers all over the world, and most horse-friendly countries are going to have laboratories that are doing hay tests. Whether you’re in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Europe — obviously they’ll be there — down in Oceania — around the world, there are laboratories doing hay tests, because that’s also really important for ruminant nutrition. For cattle and sheep, those owners need to know what’s in their hay because that helps them balance their feed.

[21:38]

So there are services around, and you can look, and there are different services — some places in the United States have multiple laboratories doing this. Now, if you are having trouble — just to plug this here — and you’re in North America, you can go to MadBarn.com/diet and you can speak with one of our qualified nutritionists. It’s a free service, no strings attached. They can help you get a hay test and then help you analyze your hay test — all for free. If you’re in North America and have not done that yet, I highly suggest you do. It’s a wonderful part of being with Mad Barn, and it’s one of the services they offer. So check that out.

[22:20]

But if you’re outside North America, you can look for qualified equine nutritionists in your area and see what their services are and if there are costs involved — but I highly suggest it, absolutely, especially for any horse. Now, when you do find a laboratory, you want to go and read off their website — most are going to have directions on what to do, how to properly get a hay sample, and how to ship it or where to ship it. I just went to the University of Florida Forage Extension Laboratory, and for the $7 hay test, they’re just giving you the crude protein and total digestible nutrients.

[23:05]

You can contact them via phone or email if you want to get a horse-quality test or if you need to look at the mineral content — which I highly suggest you do. But it shows you where you mail it, how to take the samples, and how much. Now, this is critical — getting that hay sample — that’s a very, very important part of this process. It’s not just that you identify the laboratory where you’re going to send your hay test, then you need to know how to take a proper sample of your hay.

[23:43]

Again, plugging Mad Barn, because this is all free — free education for you and free demonstrations on the website — there is “How to Take a Hay Sample for Your Horse” by one of our PhD nutritionists, and she walks you through how to do it with a hay bale core or also using scissors. If you have that hay probe to get a core sample, many you can put on the end of an electric drill — there are other types out there — and she talks about going about 18 inches into the side of that bale of hay to get multiple flakes tested. It’s not just going to one specific part — you’re going through the side, you’re getting multiple flakes, so you’re getting a representative sample of that bale of hay.

[24:45]

You want at least 10 to 12 — upwards of 20 — bales sampled. The total weight of the samples that you send should be half to one pound, or 200 to 500 grams. When you use your hay probe or core, you go in, take that sample, put it in a plastic baggie, and once you’ve done it all, you want to mix it in that bag so it’s representative of all the hay. If you have round bales, you want to go in at one of the curves to get a good sample — and again, take multiple samples.

[25:24]

Okay, let’s say I don’t have a hay probe — what can I use? You can use scissors. With this method, you can do about 20 bales, and you want to just grab different sub-samples — get a few from the outside, but more importantly, open up that hay and just grab it, then clip it at the end so it’s about two to three-inch-long segments, and stick it in your bag. Then go through your hay, do about 20 different bales, just grab, clip, and stick it in the bag. Again, mix it at the end.

[25:54]

You can also sample pastures — which is highly recommended, especially if that’s where your horse gets a lot of their forage. How do you do that? You can go around with scissors, and about every 10 feet (about three meters), you want to clip the grass or the forage about where the horse is grazing. Clip it just like you’re grabbing the hay sample — you want two to three-inch segments, then stick it in your bag. Depending on the laboratory, you can either freeze that or dry it out — lay it out for a couple of days and air dry it — and then send it in. You want to preserve the sugars that are in that sample so it’s representative when you get your pasture test.

[26:54]

Now, depending on the lab, they will offer horse forage sample analysis, and then you want to get that complete trace mineral analysis. Again, it’s going to depend on the lab what exactly they’re going to be testing, but there are some generalities that I’ll talk through, and then some of the things that might be missing.

[27:14]

So, you get your sample, it’s bagged up, you mail it off, and let’s say within a week you get your results. You’re going to get back the sample test, which is a lot of numbers and some words that you’re like, “What is this?” And that’s what we’re going to talk about right now, because when you look at it, your eyes cross, and you’re like, “Okay, what is soluble protein percentage? And what is ADF, NDF, and all of that?” Again, qualified equine nutritionists — they’re the ones that decipher this.

[27:46]

I remember one of my favorite stories from my PhD years. One of my really good friends, Dr. Clay Cavender — he’s a professor now at the University of Mississippi State — and I were taking classes on reproductive technologies. These were the top scientists in the world: Dr. Mark Westhusin, Dr. Katrin Hinrichs, Dr. Dee Dee Kramer — teaching us. Every time we went to lecture and lab, we were just captivated. It was amazing. I mean, I’m working with the top cloners in the world — the Discovery Channel had just rolled through the lab interviewing them during the cloning craze.

[28:37]

I remember Clay and I got back to the grad office where all the PhDs were. Dr. Betsy Wagner — again, she’s now a colleague — said, “Oh, what class did you guys just get out of?” And we’re like, “Oh yeah, reproductive technologies today — talking about blah blah blah.” She’s like, “Oh yeah, I just got out of analytical biochemistry — mineral biochemistry.” My eyes glazed over. I laughed and said, “Oh, Betsy, that sounds so horrible.” You know, here we are working with elephant oocytes — I remember lion oocytes too — and she just got out of mineral biochemistry. But that’s what she did for her PhD — and she is very wise in all of this.

[29:31]

So again, with Mad Barn, all these qualified PhD nutritionists — they just study this and study it. Many of my mentors and colleagues publish the research, put together the NRC, and come out with the recommendations of what you should be feeding your horse. Feel good about that — you have very smart, very dedicated people coming up with this information. I came out with reproductive physiology, and then I started to do some nutritional research too, because that’s where the bulk of our horse research is — centered around nutrition.

[30:08]

So, going back to this hay test — you look at these values, and there are things you can do to look at it and gain wisdom. One of the first things you’re going to notice is you’re going to see “Dry Matter Percentage.” What that means is how much moisture was in that hay sample. Now, grass out on a pasture can be 70% moisture — meaning water content — and then the other 30% are all the nutrients: the sugars, the fiber, the protein, and everything else. In our hay, we’re around 90% dry matter — only about 10% moisture on average — so there’s not a lot of moisture in that hay because it has been cured, cut, and sun-dried.

[31:03]

It’s not silage — we never feed silage to horses. I always talk to horse owners, especially in parts of the world where silage is fed to horses, and I say, “Don’t,” because that moisture content ferments, and then you can get microbes, and you can kill your horse with mycotoxins. It’s happened — hundreds of horses have died from it. I remember in Florida back in the day, hundreds of horses just dropped dead because they were feeding silage. So, our good-quality horse hays are going to be up to about 90% dry matter — it’s going to vary a little bit — but that’s what that value is telling you: how much moisture is in that hay.

[32:01]

The next thing you’re going to see is protein. The value that’s most important for you is probably just “Crude Protein Percentage.” That means the total protein content within that hay. Grass hays vary — you’re looking at 8–10%, maybe 12% crude protein. Your legume hays — those go 15–20%, maybe above 22% crude protein. So if you feed a lot of alfalfa mixed in with some grass hay, there’s going to be a lot more protein in that forage than just grass hay. Like I said, we tend to overfeed protein — it’s one of those nutrients we used to think horses needed a lot of.

[33:05]

Generally, horses around 10–12% crude protein — again, depending on the horse, since every horse is an individual — are going to be okay. That’s the range you’re looking at. When you look at “Soluble Protein,” that’s just a different fraction that your nutritionist can look at — it’s the soluble fraction of the protein that is readily available to the animal. For you, the horse owner, just looking at crude protein percentage is going to give you a good idea of how much protein is in that hay. Your nutritionist can delve deeper into the other protein values, but for most horse owners, that gets too far into the weeds.

[33:58]

Because there are other things you really need to look at. So, you look at your dry matter — okay, that’s around 90%, that’s fine. Crude protein for grass hay — around 10% — or legume hay — 16–18% — that’s normal. Then you’re going to have the fibers. Horses need a lot of fiber in the diet because it’s important for digestive health. That fiber goes to the hindgut — because horses are hindgut fermenters — and the microbes in the hindgut convert that fiber to volatile fatty acids, which are critical for the horse and where they get a lot of their energy.

[34:49]

The fiber part of the hay test is very important to look at, and it’s represented mainly in two things (though lignin is also measured): Acid Detergent Fiber (ADF) and Neutral Detergent Fiber (NDF). Really quick — lignin is the part of the forage that the horse can’t digest, or can digest very, very little, because the microorganisms in the hindgut have a really tough time breaking down lignin. Whatever lignin the horse eats generally goes out the hind end. It’s like when a horse eats corn — which you shouldn’t feed — you tend to see the kernels come out the other end. Same with oats — you might see them in the feces. That’s like lignin — it passes through without much digestion.

[35:47]

Lignin will show you the maturity of a hay — if there’s too much lignin, that might mean that hay is too mature for the horse and could impact nutrient availability. That’s where ADF and NDF come in. Acid Detergent Fiber is the portion of cellulose and lignin. Cellulose is digestible by the horse. The range that’s good for the horse is 30–40% ADF. If it’s above 45%, it probably means it’s a more mature hay — too fibrous — and not enough energy is being extracted from it. So that’s where that 30–40% value comes in when you look at your hay test.

[36:57]

Neutral Detergent Fiber is another measurement to look at hay quality — it includes lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose. Hemicellulose is partially digestible by the horse. Again, the higher the NDF value, the more fibrous it is, which probably means it doesn’t taste as good (less palatable) and the horse may not eat as much. NDF values you want to see range from 40–60%. Anything over 65% means it’s probably too fibrous and may not be palatable, so the horse won’t get as many nutrients out of it.

[38:02]

So that’s the fibers. Non-fibers — you will see fat. There’s not a lot of fat in our forages — usually 1–3%. Horses do well on added fats to the diet, and research over the last two decades has shown that fats are an excellent source of energy for the horse if they need it. Again, they need time to adjust if you add fats to the diet, and any dietary change should be made over a period of two to three weeks. But most horses today don’t need much added fat unless they’re athletes.

[39:03]

The non-structural carbohydrates, however — this is where it gets tricky. With your hay test, you have to be careful with the NSC that they report. Most laboratories are doing hay tests for ruminant animals like cattle and sheep, so they report NSC as water-soluble carbohydrates plus starch. But for horse nutrition, because horses digest differently — they are hindgut fermenters — the NSC is calculated with ethanol-soluble carbohydrates plus starch. That will be your NSC value for your horse.

[40:12]

So again, when you get your hay test report back and there is a non-structural carbohydrates value — that’s one thing we’re really looking at today because feeding too many carbohydrates is leading to insulin resistance and other metabolic issues, especially for our PSSM horses or other types where we have to be careful about sugars and starches. In your hay test, you want to add the ESC value to the starch value — that will be your horse NSC. Some labs, if it’s horse-specific, may do that for you, but just double-check. If you have a metabolic horse, or you’re worried about that, you really need to work with an equine nutritionist or a veterinarian experienced in equine nutrition.

[41:17]

So, we went through dry matter, protein, the fibers, the non-fibers like fat, and then that NSC. Now let’s look at the minerals. These can vary from lab to lab, but in general they’re going to report things like sodium. Sodium is low in our forages, but horses need more sodium — especially to support exercise, sweating, and overall physiological function. It’s always advisable to provide free-choice salt to a horse or loose salt, in addition to adding salt to your vitamin/mineral mix if it doesn’t have it or if more is needed.

[42:01]

Also in the minerals, you’ll see something called “Ash Percentage.” That’s because when they do the chemistry — the analytical chemistry — they burn that hay at a very high temperature so it turns to ash, and that ash percentage is just representative of the mineral content in that hay. Iron is probably going to be a large value — most forages are high in iron, above what the horse needs each and every day. You have to be careful feeding way too much iron, so again, that’s where an equine nutritionist can look at the total diet of your horse and make adjustments if needed.

[42:54]

Two ratios you should really key in on are the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio and the zinc-to-copper ratio. Calcium and phosphorus are important especially for growing horses — it’s critical for bones and teeth. The proper range for horses is 1.5 parts calcium to 1 part phosphorus, up to 4 parts calcium to 1 part phosphorus. There always needs to be more calcium than phosphorus in the hay, since horses eat a lot of it, and any good horse vitamin/mineral supplement is going to have the proper ratio. But you want to make sure your hay is in line with that — from that 1.5:1 to 4:1 range.

[43:57]

The other one is zinc to copper — very important for proteins, enzymes, and other physiological functions like collagen formation, hoof health, and coat quality. The zinc-to-copper ratio ideally for horses is 3:1 up to 4:1 — three parts zinc to one part copper, or four parts zinc to one part copper. You want to check that too. If there are other minerals they’re looking at, you want to see if the hay is sufficient or devoid of them.

[44:51]

The final thing you want to look at is the digestible energy. Again, we went through the dry matter, the protein, the fibers — very important for our horses — we looked at the carbohydrates, the fat percentage, those minerals, and now the overall energy, or digestible energy, of that hay. This is a key value, especially if you have an overweight horse and you are looking to help them lose weight, or if you have an underweight horse and you need to help them gain weight. If you look at your hay and realize, “Wow, it’s not as high in energy as I’d hoped,” then maybe you need to supplement — for example, add an oil with beet pulp as a carrier.

[45:34]

Around 2 megacalories per kilogram is what we’re looking for in a good, nutrient-dense hay. Your nutrient-dense hays are going to be above that; your grass hays, if they’re average or more mature, will be under that — like 1.8. So you want to look at that value and see if you’re really feeding a nutrient-dense hay or an older, more mature hay. And when you look at the fiber values too, that will probably clue you in a little bit.

[46:06]

Things that will be missing from almost all hay tests, or most hay tests: vitamins, some trace minerals like selenium, amino acids like lysine or methionine, biotin, and other nutrients that horses might need. So you know that a hay test tells you a lot, but it doesn’t give you everything. That’s why it’s just good practice to start with a vitamin/mineral mix on top of the forage, then either add things or limit hay if you have a weight issue. Again, working with an equine nutritionist will really help you look at this hay test and give you guidance on how to adjust your horse’s diet.

[46:49]

If you want to learn more, you can go to MadBarn and look at “Taking a Hay Sample for Your Horse” and “Understanding the Analysis.” There’s an article that follows up with this talk, explains it in a little more detail, and goes into some of these other things you might get on a hay analysis. I highly suggest you check that article out, because it will really help you — especially when you get your hay tested and you look at the results.

[47:19]

But information is power — it’s so important to your horses and their overall health. Everything starts with diet. Everything starts with diet. I know Dr. Lori Warren is probably saying, “Chris, I told you so,” because I used to tell her all the money’s in the hind end of the horse — you know, reproduction and everything I was doing — and she said, “No, it starts at the front end. It’s what you feed them.” After these many years of working with her day in, day out, and then doing research with her side-by-side, and then going out in the world doing other things, I have to agree with her that nutrition is where it all begins. It’s so important for your horses.

[48:04]

So, don’t miss this opportunity to take this information and apply it to your animals. It’s going to have a major impact on their health and well-being. Again — information is power. And they always say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we’re feeding our horses right, and they’re not getting these imbalances, they have healthy coats, healthy hooves, healthy digestive tracts — it’s going to save you a lot more money in the end, especially with vet bills and things like that. But it’s also going to improve the welfare of the horse, and in turn, improve your life.

[48:52]

So, don’t miss this opportunity to take and apply this information. Thanks for watching. Please don’t forget to subscribe, and keep monitoring this YouTube channel — more stuff’s coming your way very soon. Take care.