Re: Beet Pulp

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

Monika Smith wrote:
> 
> Hi Susan...glad to here the hand is OK! Just another mysterious scar that
> you can tell all sorts of intersting tales about! <g>

Then it'll be one of the more boring ones---I have scars from a penguin
bite, getting whacked across the shins from a shark's tail, a couple
from dolphin bites and a marginally bad back from a boo-boo with a
killer whale (in case you hadn't realized yet, I used to be a marine
mammal trainer way back when). So, GEEZ, falling off a horse onto a
broken bottle, how boring! <VBG>
> 
> I found out recently that my horse likes, no LOVES beet pulp.<snip>> 
> The reason for the beet pulp is to hopefully hide stuff in it...oil, salt
> and so on...we'll try this out slowly.

Yup, it's great for that.
> 
> OK...my friend's beet pulp was sorta stringy looking and she soaks it
> overnight. The bag I bought...50 lbs of it...is pelleted and fluffs up in 5
> minutes and totally absorbed water in about an hour (this was about 2.5
> cups of beet pulp) and made a HUGE amount.

How much water it soaks up can vary alot from area to area (where it's
grown and processed) and whether it's pelleted or whatever.

Just soak it long enough so it's mostly absorbed all the water it's
going to.  You CAN feed it dry, but I personally prefer not to, for two
reasons.  One, I DO know of some cases of choke---unusual, but it can
happen, usually in horses that gobble without chewing.  I'm a coward and
a total weenie about that sort of thing, and besides, the horses really
seem to like it better wet, so it's worth the effort.  

Two, as you've seen, beet pulp soaks up alot of water, that's just the
nature of the beast.  If it's already soaked when the horse eats it,
fine, the water is already there.  If it's fed dry, the water to wet it
down has to be supplied through saliva and gastric juices.  Ultimately,
that water comes from extracellular fluid and although the horse will
just eventually drink more to replace that water, the tissues experience
a sort of metabolic dehydration (or at least a decrease in total
hydration) for the time it takes for the horse to get around to
drinking, for the water to be absorbed through the gut and the water to
diffuse back into the tissues.  Not a major event and perfectly normal,
BUT---hydration status is a big deal in endurance horses and it's a VERY
important issue to keep as much water as possible in the tissues, not
being pulled into the lumen of the intestines to hydrate a bunch of beet
pulp.  Not so much if the horse is just standing around, but definitely
during exercise and absolutely during a ride.

So the bottom line is that if you feed beet pulp already soaked and
holding a maximum amount of water, then it not only is the beet pulp not
going to deprive peripheral tissues of water, it will act as an
additional reservoir of water for the tissues to draw on---which is
definitely an advantage during endurance exercise.
> 

> I only plan to give her that 2 - 3 cup (hydrated) amount daily...too much?

Heck, no.  My horses each get three to four pounds of dryweight beet
pulp, which is then soaked.  It's alot of beet pulp, but they absolutely
adore it and it's great for them.  I know of horses that are getting
more than eight pounds a day---now THAT'S alot of beet pulp.

Personally, I kind of doubt there is such a thing as too much beet pulp.


> Do I need to balance it with anything? 

Nope, one of the nice (and unusual) things about beet pulp is that while
it supplies a nice, balanced array of nutrients, it's not excessive in
any one nutrient, like alot of other feeds are---for example, rice bran
is excessive in phosphorus, alfalfa is excessive in calcium, and so on. 
So if you're feeding beet pulp, you don't have to worry about adding
this or that to make up for any imbalances.  It will supply a moderate
amount of fiber, protein, energy, minerals, vitamins, etc, and as you
pointed out, is a great place to hide stuff.  Not to mention keeps them
happily munching and slurping for hours.

Will this cause problems if the
> amount varies or if she doesn't get it consistently? Thinking what you said
> about the gut flora and how sensitive they are to changes in feed!

Well, you don't want to make drastic fluctuations, like going from zero
beet pulp to eight pounds in one day, but on the other hand, beet pulp
is such a middle of the road feed that I suspect you can get away with a
lot more in playing games with it than you could with other feeds.  The
reason is that some species of bugs in the gut like primarily
starch-type feeds (like grain) and others eat primarily cellulose and
forage-type feeds like hays and grasses.  So if you make a huge change
in the hay-grain ratio in the ration, some bugs go into a population
explosion with ALL THIS FOOD, while others are dying of starvation or
because the other bug population has crowded them out.  It's a sort of
checks-and-balances sort of thing.

Anyway, beet pulp is sort of in a category by itself, not being quite a
forage like hay and also not quite a concentrate feed like grains---it's
right in the middle and so I suspect no matter what you do with it
(within reason) you aren't going to cause the intestinal uproar that you
would if you made drastic changes with grains or in switching from grass
to alfalfa and so on.  I wouldn't suggest dropping a wheelbarrow in
front of a horse that's never gotten it before, but I wouldn't lose
sleep over fluctuating a daily ration by a pound or two either way, or
skipping a day here and there.
> 
> Thanks! Your advice is always greatly appreciated!
> 
> Monika, Koko (love beet pulp) and Ripp (hey, don't I get any?)

You're welcome, I hope this answered your questions.  You asked some new
and really good questions about it, so I hope you don't mind if I CC the
list, always looking for more bang for the buck.

Seeya, 

Susan Garlinghouse