One of the first major programs I led as a new Extension specialist at the University of Missouri was centered around a mobile near infrared spectroscopy (NIR) hay testing van. This was very advanced technology at the time, which was almost 40 years ago, or ‘in the 1900’s as I like to tell my students. I was the equivalent of the Little Red Hen of children’s books, as I would drive up in the van, plug it in, process samples, test the samples, hand out the sample results and then present the educational meeting.
I was surprised at the nearly universal reaction of farmers when I handed them their results. Nearly every time, they would hand the report back to me and ask me, ‘is it any good?’ As a new specialist my lack of depth and working knowledge of forages was shocking – I assumed that everyone knew more about forage reports than I did. Surely the report itself was sufficient, that it would speak for itself.
Wrong.
I need to acknowledge up front that the absolute best and most proven way to evaluate forage quality is the performance of the animal to be fed. While true, it is certainly an ‘after the fact’ kind of revelation. Kind of like predicting the score of a football game the day after it was played. One hundred percent accurate but not very helpful.
To get a good forage analysis, start with a good sample which is composed of cores from 15 to 20 bales of hay that are representative of the lot. Submit the whole sample to a certified forage laboratory. Most of the forage tests today are done using NIR, which provides more information at lower cost than traditional wet chemistry methods.
Once you get the report, you are at a similar place as my Missouri farmers – wondering if the hay is any good? To answer that, at least partially, I will start with the hardest aspect of forage quality to understand – fiber. Fiber in the diet of ruminants and equine is inversely proportional to energy. Energy is the holy grail of forage quality because energy is the most limiting component of forages.
First, to say two things are inversely proportional, it means when one increases, the other decreases. With livestock, as forage fiber goes up, energy goes down. Think of the contrast in calories between shredded wheat (high fiber) and Breyers ice cream. To meet your daily energy needs, you would have to eat a lot of shredded wheat but only a little Breyers ice cream!
The same thing is true with forages, livestock have to consume much more of a high fiber forage to meet energy needs than with low fiber forages. And just as your stomach will max out after a couple of bowls of shredded wheat, livestock have a finite capacity to consume and digest high fiber feeds.
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Categories: Kentucky, Crops, Wheat, Hay & Forage, Energy, Livestock