How do I choose the right Equi Feed package?

The horse’s health, from a nutritional point of view, is based on four aspects: the nutritional value, fibrous-, mineral- and trace element content of the forage. These four aspects are related to each other and should be balanced. Therefore, nutritional value, fibrous-, mineral- and trace element content of the forage can be seen as pieces of a puzzle. Each parameter analysed within Equi Feed will contribute to a piece of the puzzle. When missing one piece of the puzzle, you will miss out on an opportunity to balance your horse’s diet to maintain or even improve your horse’s health.

Equi Feed offers a Professional, Premium and Basis package to analyse your forage:

Equi Feed Professional gives you a complete overview of the composition of your forage including the nutritional value, fibrous-, mineral- and trace element content of your forage. This package gives you all the tools to compose a complete and balanced diet for your horse. This package could be recommended for all horses but especially for horses with health issues, or horses with higher metabolic requirements such as sport horses, growing horses, mares in gestation and lactating mares.
Equi Feed Premium gives you an overview of the nutritional value, fibrous- and mineral content of your forage. This package could be recommended if trace elements are not specifically necessary to know for the circumstances of your horse, but you would still like to have a solid foundation for composing your horse’s diet.
Equi Feed Basis would give you a basis overview on the nutritional value and fibrous content of your forage. This package could be recommended if limited information on the forage content is enough. For example, when choosing between different batches when purchasing new forage.

Detailed overview of all the parameters within the Professional, Premium or Basis package for a hay or haylage sample:

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Related faqs

What is Equi Feed?

Equi Feed is our feed value analysis, specially developed for horses. Equi Feed gives you accurate and valuable insight into the nutrient composition of your roughage to help you create a balanced diet for a healthy horse.

Why should I use Equi Feed?

Equi Feed allows you to give your horse the best possible diet. Optimizing feed for a horse or pony is quite a challenge. After all, forage varies from batch to batch, meaning you never really know exactly what your horse is eating. Horses have a special digestive system with a small stomach that is geared up for small bits of feed throughout the day. Most of this food is broken down after the stomach, in the cecum and large intestine by intestinal bacteria, earning horses the title of hindgut fermenters.
It is important to keep gut bacteria active with plenty of fibre. This fibre is found primarily in roughage such as grass, hay, and haylage. As a rule of thumb, a horse should get at least 1.5% of its body weight in dry matter from roughage to meet its daily fibre needs. Therefore, the main part of the horse’s diet contains of forage. In addition to fibre, the feed must also contain sufficient energy, minerals and trace elements for a healthy horse to develop and perform well. With forage analysis, you will have insight into the quality of the forage. Based on the forage composition, you can integrate concentrate or supplements exactly as needed. This alone just make a big difference in monthly feed costs.

How can I use Equi Feed?

High quality forage fulfils most of your horse's basic needs. By analysing the forage, you can adjust and balance the horse’s diet based on the results of the analysis. You will have insight into the quality of the forage – and, if necessary, you can then supplement the feed with concentrate or supplements.

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How do I collect a representable sample?

You can take a representable sample by following checklist below:

Fill in the order form with the correct email address, personal details and information about the sample to analyse.
Gather the completed order form, a bucket, a plastic bag and a cardboard box.
When sampling wrapped bales of forage, make an opening inside the plastic so that a forage sample can be taken. When making a hole inside the plastic, take into account that you have to re-seal the plastic after taking the sample to maintain the quality of the forage.
Pull tufts of hay from the batch of hay or haylage and put it in the bucket. Make sure you get the whole strain of forage without selecting to include all material in the sample (leaf and stem of the plant) to get a representative sample. It is important to pull tufts on different randomly chosen places and various depths from several bales of the batch meaning not to take tufts only from the surface.
Take the plastic bag.
Fill the plastic bag with 250 grams of forage. In case of haylage with a very low DM, fill the bag with more forage (maximum 400 grams).
Put some pressure on the plastic bag to release as much air as possible from the bag and tie the plastic bag shut.
After taking a wrapped forage sample, it is important to re-seal the bales immediately with tape after taking the sample to maintain the quality of the forage.
Put the bag with the order form in the cardboard box.
Write the address on top of the box.
Bring your package to a package delivery service as soon as possible.
Your package will be brought to our laboratory, within 10 working days after receiving your sample at our laboratory you will receive the results of the analysis on your email.

Does it matter when I take the sample?

To get the most accurate analysis results for haylage bales, the forage sample should be taken 4 to 6 weeks after haylage is harvested. Hay samples can be taken shortly after collecting the hay bales. Do not harvest and/or sample forage within 6 weeks after fertilizing the field. After taking the sample, it is important to send the sample as soon as possible to guarantee a qualitative result. Nevertheless, it is best to send the sample in the beginning of the week.

How do I choose the right type of forage?

At Eurofins, the difference between hay and haylage lies in whether the forage is wrapped or not as well as the dry matter content of the forage. If the forage is wrapped with a dry matter content <70%, the forage is called haylage. How to test the DM content of your forage? Take a tuft of forage in your hand and squeeze it tight. Is your hand moisty? Then your forage has a dry matter content <70% and the forage is called haylage. If the forage is not wrapped or if the forage is wrapped with >70% dry matter, the forage is called hay.

Why do I have to make a choice between hay or haylage if I want to analyse my forage?

Equi Feed offers a Professional, Premium and Basis package to analyse your fresh grass, hay or haylage. Choosing the right type of forage is very important since the database to analyse the results, the target values and therefore the results themselves are different for fresh grass, hay and haylage. Within haylage, the forage is sealed off from air and in combination with moist within the forage, bacteria have the opportunity to start processing the forage which we call fermentation. The bacteria will cause the formation of ammonia and acids from crude protein followed by a change in pH. After 4 to 6 weeks, the process of fermentation is finished and the bales will become stable. If the forage is not wrapped or if the forage is wrapped with >70% dry matter, the forage is called hay. Since this type of forage has a higher dry matter content compared to haylage, bacteria have no chance to process the forage and fermentation will not occur. Therefore, hay will be stable shortly after collecting the bales.

Why should I choose an accredited laboratory to analyse my forage?

An accredited laboratory is controlled by an accrediting authority in the country where the laboratory is located. Therefore, as an accredited laboratory, Eurofins delivers independent and accurate results based on years of experience and data of analysing forage.

What do the parameters on the report mean and what do they do for my horse?

After receiving the results, a document explaining the meaning and the functions of all parameters on the report will be available for you.

When and where can I find the results?

Within 10 working days after Eurofins has received the sample, you will receive a clear analysis report via email, detailing the composition of the roughage.

What is the analysis method of Equi Feed?

Equi Feed is analysed using the NIRS method. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for solid materials was developed in the 1960s. Eurofins started with the NIRS system for forage in 1986. NIRS allows for fast, quantitative, non-destructive, and cost-effective estimation of multiple physical, biological and chemical forage characteristics from the same spectral data once sufficient large data databases have been established. This method is based on official wet chemistry methods providing constant validation for the NIRS method.

What are the Equi Feed target values based on?

The target values for the Equi Feed results are based on the Nutrient Requirements of Horses (NRC 2007), the CVB feed evaluation system (CVB 2016, CVB 2023) and the average analysis results analysed by Eurofins over the last five years.

Why is my crude ash very high?

Crude ash is the inorganic part of the organic matter of the forage. The crude ash fraction in forage contains the total value for minerals and contaminants such as soil or sand within the forage. When drying the forage sample at high temperature for analysis, the minerals that have not been fully absorbed in organic matter and the sand remain. By adding up the mineral content of the forage and extract this from the crude ash part of the forage, the sand within the forage remains. When the machines used for mowing and harvesting the grass are not adjusted correctly, this can affect a higher amount of soil or sand within the forage causing a higher crude ash within the forage. Also fertilizing the pasture just before mowing the grass can affect the crude ash part of the forage since the minerals in the fertilizer did not have the time to be absorbed in organic matter.

How do I know if the forage is a good fit for my horse?

On the first page of the report, you will find a general advice if the forage will be a good fit for your horse. These are guidelines for a 600 kg horse based on different metabolic needs in different circumstances according to the NRC (2007) and CVB (2016). Please be aware that you need to contact your veterinarian if your horse is showing signs of disease. We recommend using a calculation program or contact a feed adviser to make a feed plan for your horse covering all the needs it has for the level of use.