We were joking with our son the other night that he has been replaced as my wife’s favorite child by the dog. However, it appears Zues is trying to work his way down the list. He began by digging up ...

Mature hay is hay. It may be brome hay, prairie hay or any other type of hay. But in the end, it’s just hay until it’s been tested. Forage tests tell the tale of whether hay is of good quality and ...

The most important decision affecting hay quality is when you cut. As forage matures, fiber levels increase while ...

SAUK CENTRE, Minn. -- To a hay jockey, Stearns DHIA Central Laboratories is important for one thing -- it's the place where they analyze forage samples for the Mid-America Hay Auction. The lab complex ...

If you haven't been testing the forage you feed to livestock, this might be the year to start. Many livestock producers across the Upper Midwest will be feeding an unusual blend of high- and ...

, I discussed how to physically evaluate hays. Physical evaluation is used first to help us find hays that are free of foreign materials, will be readily consumed by horses and are high in nutrient ...

Farmers and ranchers indicate their prairie hay or cane hay or other grass hay looks really good, but when a lab tested it, the relative feed value, also called RFV, was surprisingly low. Protein was ...

Producers who rely on near-infrared spectroscopy to analyse forages such as mixed herbal leys, bi-crops and wholecrop legumes could be overfeeding or underfeeding key nutrients in their rations.