09/06/2026
Remember that Ziploc bag of grass? We got the results. 🌱🔬
A few weeks ago we shared that we were sending samples from Juniper Farm off to Equi-Analytical to find out what was actually growing in our pastures.
Like a lot of things around here, this particular experiment started because of Archie.
A routine insulin check came back significantly higher than his historical numbers. We already knew the Timothy hay we carefully select for him tests at 9.19% NSC, so that left us with another pretty big question…
What is he actually eating when he’s out on our pasture?
So out came the scissors and Ziploc bags.
We sampled our main pasture at two different points in his turnout cycle, once around evening turnout and again at morning bring-in. We wanted to know what the grass was running when he went out and what it looked like after being in the dark overnight.
From Archie’s perspective, the first numbers we went looking for were obviously the sugars and starches.
🌱 Evening NSC: 7.8%
🌱 Morning NSC: 5.3%
Simple sugars (ESC) dropped from 4.4% in the evening to 2.7% by morning too.
For comparison, Archie’s Timothy hay is 9.19% NSC.
We were pretty darn happy to see those numbers.
Does that mean we’ve somehow created perfect pasture for an insulin-resistant horse? Nope. And it definitely doesn’t mean Archie gets to retire his grazing muzzle and belly up to the pasture buffet. A forage test is a snapshot in time, conditions change and how MUCH grass a horse eats matters too.
But NSC was only the reason we sent the samples. It wasn’t all the grass had to tell us.
We also got to see what our pasture is actually providing nutritionally.
Crude protein tested between 11.2% and 14.6%, with digestible energy right around 0.88–0.89 Mcal/lb of dry matter. We got fiber values, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and trace minerals. In other words, a much better picture of what is actually going into our horses when we turn them out on all that green stuff we’ve spent so much time growing.
And honestly, this is the part that gets really interesting for us at Juniper Equiland.
We talk a lot about soil. We test it. We pay attention to what it’s telling us. We amend it based on what it actually needs instead of just throwing fertilizer at it and hoping for the best.
But the goal isn’t simply to grow a pretty green pasture.
We’re growing forage.
The soil supports the grass. The grass provides nutrition to the horse. And whether we’re managing a horse like Archie with a very specific metabolic concern or a horse without one, understanding what’s actually growing out there gives us another piece of information to make better decisions.
How much protein is the pasture providing? What does the mineral profile look like? How much energy is there? What about sugars and starches? How does it change over time?
Those are questions you can’t answer just by standing at the fence and admiring a beautiful field.
We certainly don’t have all the answers, and that’s part of what makes this so interesting to us. We’re learning right alongside everyone else. But we’re big believers that the more we can measure, the less we have to guess.
We’ll keep testing our soil. We’ll keep testing what grows from it. We’ll keep learning how those pieces fit together and using that information to make better decisions for our own horses and hopefully help the farms we work with do the same.
Soil → grass → horse.
Turns out that little Ziploc bag had quite a lot to say. 🌱🐴
