Why Every Bale Deserves a Feed Test
A green bale doesn’t mean a good bale. Color, smell, even how tight it’s tied, those things matter, but they don’t tell you what’s inside. If you’re feeding animals, or selling to folks who are, numbers are what count. That’s where a feed test comes in.
What a Feed Test Actually Does
A proper feed analysis breaks your hay down into hard facts:
Protein – building muscle and weight.
Fibres – what keeps the gut moving.
Non-structural carbs (NSC) – the sugars and starch that can make or break a diet.
Relative feed value – the overall score that tells you if the hay’s worth its weight.
For high-performance equine, protein and energy matter. For the easy keeper with metabolic concerns, low NSC is critical. And for the beef cow herd, you’re often chasing volume and protein. One bale doesn’t suit them all, and you can’t see the difference without testing.
How We Test (and How You Can Too)
We’ve been using the same coring tool for 20+ years, a Star Quality Sampler, bought when Warren first started chasing hay perfection. They’re still out there, still shipping worldwide, and still the best we’ve found.
Here’s our process:
Pull 30 cores from random bales across that day’s production.
Mix them in a clean pail.
Bag 250 grams (a sandwich baggie full) and ship it to a feed lab.
Most labs will walk you through the details, and your vet can help make sense of the results. In Alberta, we send the samples off to labs that specialize in equine and livestock nutrition. Results usually come back quick, and they’ve become a selling tool in themselves. Customers see the numbers, not just the colour, and trust goes way up.
Why It Matters for Your Bottom Line
Picture three different buyers:
A breeder with mares about to foal → they’re shopping for higher calcium levels.
A senior pony with metabolic syndrome → they need low sugar hay (NSC under 15%).
A cattle farmer looking for weight gain → they want protein to push performance.
If you don’t know what’s in your bales, you risk underselling, overselling, or worse, hurting someone’s animals. When you do know, you can price properly, sell with confidence, and keep customers coming back year after year.
The Bottom Line
Feed testing isn’t extra work, it’s insurance. It protects your animals, your reputation, and your wallet. Around here, it’s non-negotiable.