>I’m going to re-test, Jesse’s food,  Mtn sunrise timothy pellets.. I see they have a selenium test for $35.00. I >never see this mentioned here,.. Do we not test for it because it would always be low.. waste of a test?

Lj,

Testing a pelleted hay is similar to performing a test on long stem hay.  For best results, you will have obtained your own dedicated supply of bags (or bales) from the same lot number of pellets/field of hay.  You need to take samples from at least 12 to 20 of these bags/bales, the more the better.  Then the analysis will give a more accurate representation of what is truly in several bags, rather than just one.  Your analysis will only be as good as your sample.

See > Sample Taking:

http://dairyone.com/analytical-services/feed-and-forage/submitting-forage-samples/

This means opening up 20 bags of timothy pellets and taking an equal volume of pellets from various places in each bag, mixing, and submitting a sample from this mix. 

And yes, I have done it: opened a corner, reached down into the bag so the sample was not all from the same place in the bag, then stapled the bag afterwards, so you *can* do that too.

Since you do not know where the hay comes from, you may want to do the Selenium test on the pellets to have some idea of what levels you might expect.  Adding a blood test for Selenium when you are doing other blood work is not expensive, and provides some further guidance for supplementation.  

Ask for the analysis to be done on whole blood (uses purple top tube) rather than just serum, since this will also include Se that is inside the red cells, for the “bigger picture”.

Eva

SW Ontario, March 2005