Can anyone walk me through this? Does the hay dealer typically test before selling? Do you take their word for it?
where do you send your hay to be tested? From CT? The Midwest?
The farmer where I’ve gotten my hay for nearly 15 years used to test. He’s also a soybean farmer… and well, times are tough and he didn’t test this year. He let me come up and pull samples for testing. Then I sent them off to UT (University of Tennessee) for testing. Full spectrum of tests was $50 per hay type.
If you have a nationally recognized agricultural program at a local university (like UT), you may be able to get testing done there. There are also national companies that do it. For me, the testing was way cheaper at UT and I liked the thought of supporting their program extension who does the testing.
Equi Analytical in NY state.
Most farmers and dealers do not typically test. If they do, they should have copies of the results to give you.
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Many agricultural extensions or vet schools offer cheap hay analysis. But your best bet is a company that offers a range of choices and techniques that will give you what you want. You’re likely on your own with testing and I’d only believe a farmer or dealer if they gave my a copy of the current analysis.
I second Equi Analytical in NY. I use them to analyze my horse’s pasture grass.
You buy a probe and you send your sample in. Generally to equianalytical, but there are other outfits.
Sellers around here sure don’t test as a rule. In cattle country you’re more likely to find someone who does, because feed tests are important to dairy men. Yes, you take their word for it, but you can test your lot again if you’d like.
I didn’t need a probe to get my samples - my supplier said he just filled up a gallon ziplock baggie from a sample of 10 or so bales. So that is what I did. I did put on gloves so I wouldn’t contaminate the hay in any way. Then I pulled a good handful from 10 different 21-bale bundles. Then squeezed all the air out of the ziplock baggie, bagged it again in another freezer ziplock bag, into the bubble mailer, and off it went in the mail.
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Sure, that’s an option. But you need to collect from the middle of the bale, and opening a fair number can be problematic depending on your storage options and when you’re testing–pre or post purchase. A probe is not terribly expensive and is a good investment if you’re going to be doing yearly testing.
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I bought a probe and send mine to Equi-Analytical. Very few growers/brokers around here test. I had an IR/EMS horse so I got into testing my hay when it arrives, and I still do even though he is gone. Some extension offices have probes you can borrow, or so I have been told. I didn’t bother to ask mine as my county is too intent on growing houses not hay or livestock, so our extension service is pretty useless.
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Which county @horsepoor ?? I’m in Clackamas, last I heard they had a probe you could borrow.
ETA: Whoops, sorry, just realized you already bought one. 
Yes, you need a probe to get to the middle of the bales, or you need to open up the bales and grab a handful from the middle. You need a random sampling from at least 10% of the bales, not just 10% of the outside of a stack as those might all be from the same section of the field.
If using Equi-Analytical I would do at least the Equi-Tech test so you get the trace minerals. The county extension agencies I’ve seen don’t do trace minerals (copper, zinc, etc) and IME it’s well worth it.
