Barn 21 goes the extra mile for you to provide excellent quality hay. We stand behind our product and we have an quality guarantee. How do we know the alfalfa hay we sell is quality hay, because our hay is certified lab tested.
We also inspect our hay visually on top of testing.
We go through a series of steps:
Step One
To even be considered as number one horse hay the first thing we do is inspect the field right after the hay was baled. If there is evidence of weeds on the borders, gopher holes, litter, or mud in the field it wont be considered as number one.
Step 2: visual inspection. If it came out of a clean field the first thing I look at is color. Number one hay mist be dark green all the way through. Next: Leaf. This is where the feed value is, so it matters. If its not leafy, it wont test very well.
Step 3 is stem.
We look for a medium to fine stem that will be easy for a horse to chew. If its stemmy, its not considered number one hay. The last step is the analysis- If it passes the field test and visual test the last thing is the actual test from the lab. Hay cores are taken randomly and sent to the lab for analysis. We are looking for the correct range for RFV ( relative feed value ), moisture, micronutrient content, and to see how clean it is. The test will even tell us if there is a higher than average amount of dirt in the hay. If it looks pretty but doesn’t test well, its not Cardew Number 1 premium hay.
Does your supplier do this? Probably not.
Barn 21 has different hay grades available:
We also inspect our hay visually on top of testing.
We go through a series of steps:
Step One
To even be considered as number one horse hay the first thing we do is inspect the field right after the hay was baled. If there is evidence of weeds on the borders, gopher holes, litter, or mud in the field it wont be considered as number one.
Step 2: visual inspection. If it came out of a clean field the first thing I look at is color. Number one hay mist be dark green all the way through. Next: Leaf. This is where the feed value is, so it matters. If its not leafy, it wont test very well.
Step 3 is stem.
We look for a medium to fine stem that will be easy for a horse to chew. If its stemmy, its not considered number one hay. The last step is the analysis- If it passes the field test and visual test the last thing is the actual test from the lab. Hay cores are taken randomly and sent to the lab for analysis. We are looking for the correct range for RFV ( relative feed value ), moisture, micronutrient content, and to see how clean it is. The test will even tell us if there is a higher than average amount of dirt in the hay. If it looks pretty but doesn’t test well, its not Cardew Number 1 premium hay.
Does your supplier do this? Probably not.
Barn 21 has different hay grades available:
