If you’re not sure about the quality of the hay you’ve made this summer, there’s a much better way to find out than just guessing. Pull a representative sample from each lot of hay and send it to a reputable lab. The results can help you decide which animals should get which hay, and how much, if any, you will need to supplement certain lots of hay with grain and/or supplement.

Chris Parker, Morgantown, retired Purdue University Extension educator and a forage and beef producer, believes in taking hay samples. He volunteered to pull samples on different hay lots recently to demonstrate how easy it is to obtain a sample. Here is the quick and easy, three-step process he followed.

TEST TO KNOW FOR SURE: Unless you test hay and forages, you don’t really know the nutrient content of your feedstuffs. Chris Parker borrowed this sampling device from the Morgan County Extension Office. Many Extension educators have a sampling kit. You provide the drill.

1. Obtain a forage testing probe and connect it to a drill to sample hay.

Many Extension offices have forage-sampling probes you can borrow, Parker says. The old standard was a brace-and-bit and muscle power. Today, most 18- or 20-volt cordless drills, many with lithium ion batteries, will provide enough power to drill several cores in one sampling session.

2. Use a wooden plunger to gently push out ground material from the probe.

Most sampling kits contain a plunger. Insert it and gently push it through the probe body by hand, emptying hay material into a bag. You may want to use clearly marked plastic bags while collecting samples, and then transfer the material to sample bags provided by the forage testing lab after you have collected all the samples.

Be sure to drill out several cores from various bales selected at random within each lot, or type, of hay. Parker inserts the probe into the end of the bale so it penetrates through multiple flakes, producing a more representative core.   

3. Be sure plastic bags and sample bags from labs are clearly marked.

Especially if you are sampling several different lots of hay, make sure you keep sample bags separated and clearly marked so there is no chance of confusion. Each cutting from a specific field typically makes up a "lot" of hay.

The bags Parker holds each contain several cores of hay from different bales of the same lot. He will fill out an information form and submit the samples for analysis.