08/20/2026
🌾 Why Test Your Hay? Especially for Metabolic Horses 🌾
Hay may look great, smell great, and even come from the same field as last year—but that doesn’t mean its nutritional content is the same.
For horses with insulin dysregulation, EMS, PPID, a history of laminitis, or horses that are simply easy keepers, knowing what is actually in their hay can be an important part of managing their diet.
A forage analysis takes the guesswork out of feeding.
🐴 Sugar & Starch Matter
One of the biggest concerns with metabolic horses is the amount of sugar and starch in their forage. A hay test can give us values such as ESC (simple sugars) and starch, which are especially useful when evaluating forage for an insulin-dysregulated horse.
Hay that looks stemmy, mature, or “plain” isn't automatically low in sugar—and beautiful soft green hay isn't automatically high. You cannot reliably determine sugar content by looking at hay.
⚖️ Calories Matter Too
Many metabolic horses are also easy keepers. Testing gives us a better idea of the hay's energy content so we can choose forage and feeding amounts more appropriately without unnecessarily restricting nutrients along with calories.
💪 Protein Isn't Just About the Number
Testing tells us the crude protein content of the hay. This can help determine whether the horse's forage is meeting its needs or whether the rest of the diet needs to be adjusted.
🧂 Minerals Are a BIG Piece of the Puzzle
A more complete forage analysis can show levels of important minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, copper, zinc and others.
This is incredibly helpful when choosing a ration balancer or mineral supplement. Instead of blindly adding supplements, you can build the rest of the diet around what the hay is actually providing. This is really important!
🌱 But I've Fed Hay From This Field Before...
Growing conditions matter. Rainfall, temperature, maturity at cutting, fertilization, time of day, storage and other factors can all affect the nutritional profile of forage.
Even hay harvested from the same field can test differently from one cutting or year to the next.
For a healthy horse with no special dietary concerns, you may have a little more room for error.
For a horse prone to insulin problems or laminitis, guessing can have much bigger consequences.
Hay testing is relatively inexpensive, requires only a small representative sample, and gives you information that can help you make much more educated feeding decisions.
You can't tell what's in your hay by looking at it. Test it. Know it. Then build the diet around it. 🐴🌾
