Re: feeding dry beet pulp?

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

>Could Susan G answer a question about feeding dry >beet pulp?  You recently
>suggested this as a replacement for psyllium in treating >sand, and I trust
>you totally, but I've been told that dry beet pulp WILL >choke a horse.  Is
>that just an old wives tale?  Can you explain it a little >more?

Sure, I can do that.  It's not an old wive's tale that dry beet pulp *can* cause choke in horses.  But so can hay, grain, pellets, carrots, just about anything of the right size.  If you go to an equine hospital, a big one that handles alot of referral and surgery cases, and ask them what are the most common causes of choke in horses, it'll be either hay or grain.  But you don't hear about *those* things being discussed as causing choke, and you'd never hear people saying don't feed hay or grain because it'll cause choke.  But when beet pulp causes a choke in a horse, then you *do* hear about it, because everyone has heard that 'beet pulp causes choke'.  Sure it does, but less than other feeds---you just HEAR about beet pulp more.  It's sort of like the gossip that goes around after Notorious Rider's horse goes lame at a ride---sure, 20 other people's horses were also pulled for lameness, but you won't hear about *those*.  You'll hear about the one with the notorious reputation.

 

The thing about beet pulp is that it's often fed in a pelleted form, and PELLETS are the #1 cause of choking---not the feed itself, just the pelleted form.  Pellets are just the right size to swallow without chewing and so horses often do just that---and sometimes that can cause a choke.  A lot of the commercial mixes these days are beet pulp based, so if just beet pulp itself caused choke, then you should hear about a lot of horses choking on Complete Advantage, or Sweet Rely or some such.  But you don't---because those feeds don't come in big pellets. 

 

***It's not beet pulp that causes choke, it's the particle size and speed of eating/swallowing.***

 

So, I should have included this in the discussion about dry beet pulp for sand.  If and when I feed dry beet pulp to a horse for whatever reason (and actually, I do have two right now that are getting dry beet pulp pretty much free-choice), then I'd feed the shredded form over the pelleted form.  The shredded takes more chewing and so is alot less likely to cause a choke.  I'm not wild about pellets to begin with, but if I were feeding pellets, then I'd try to do something to slow the horse down.  My horses are at what used to be an old dairy where they eat out of a 150' long concrete bunker, and just to keep them from hoovering everything up in thirty seconds, we spread the feed along the entire length so they have to nibble it up here and there rather than in one big pile.  If I were feeding pellets, I'd do something like that---do something to make the horse have to hunt for a few pellets at a time so he has to slow down (which reminds me of how the zoos feed sunflower seeds to the gorillas---they throw them into tall grass so the gorillas have to pick throuogh to get them one at a time.  Slower eating and entertainment all in one package).

 

Hope this helps. :-)

 

Susan G