Which do you feed, and why? Why do you like one version over another.
Yes, both must be soaked prior to feeding.
Shreds. Pellets just take longer to soak. Gets tiresome.
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^^ That. Shreds are just easier. Tap-hot water, literally 3-5 minutes and they are plenty soaked enough for most situations. Soak for 30 if you want them really plumped and expanded, but 3-5 minutes get them plenty soaked and slippery as long as you’re feeding right away.
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Same here. Shredded. Few minutes and they’re ready to go.
I feed pellets because it is easier to store and measure, I don’t mind the long soak time as I have a heated place for my feed so it can sit and soak (I just set it to soak right after feeding).
When feeding by weight it is just much easier to measure out the pellets, plus a 50lb bag isn’t enormous.
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Pellets as they are so much cheaper. Just takes a bit of planning to soak before feed time.
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Shredded are like instant oatmeal, pellets soaking over night and between feedings. I typically go with the lower price point.
ETA hot water makes the soaking go faster
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I fed shreds for years. I switched to pellets. I can store twice as much of the pellets in my bin as I could of the shreds. Also, I soak my beet pulp all day or all night depending. So, the time frame doesn’t matter to me. I would also like to believe that the longer I soak it, the more water it can absorb, and that’s one of the reasons I feed it. I want to get as much moisture into a horses gut as I can. I made myself a very large sieve out of a flexible rubber tub, Which I put into a muck tub. I feel it 2/3 of the way full with water. About 10 minutes before I feed, I pull the sieve out Of the muck tub and let it drain. If I want them to have a hot meal, I dump a couple gallons of hot water over top of it and let that drain out too.
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This isn’t the first time Iv’e seen folks mention draining off excess water WRT beet pulp.
Is this new/ common? I’ve always just soaked and gave it to them with whatever soaking water as well.
Yeah… I usually start soaking a few hours before the next meal. Usually while doing a midday check. Not a problem. Come summer it may be, because it might go rancid. I can keep it in the house’s mud room and walk it out for meals.
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I always drained the extra water because it removed any extra sugar leeched out of the pulp. It also seems like a nice way to drain off any water soluble junk that ended up on the pulp.
I prefer shreds in most situations because I don’t trust people lol. At this barn the pellets are soaked a solid 7 hours so I don’t worry about them not having long enough to break down.
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Hauling heavy buckets of soaked feed gets old, real fast. A cooler in the barn might be a better idea.
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Pellets, hands down. Cheaper and no more time consuming than shreds. I just soak in hot water right after feeding, so they soak till the next feed time. Hot water if I forget, or couldn’t be bothered. Takes about 30 minutes. Plus I think they absorb more water, so especially in the winter, like that.
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Here in the PNW we have a high iron issue.
Peet pulp pellets are often high iron, and I’ve been advised to rinse the soaked pellets before feeding. Of course it also removes any leached out sugar.
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Pellets. Cheaper to buy, easier to store. I put 1 cup of dry pellets in a 1 qt thermos, fill it halfway with hot water and place the lid on top at breakfast time, and the product is ready to feed by dinner time. The thermos keeps it warm until serving time and is easily portable to wherever I am going for the day.
I use both but more often shreds because of how fast they soak- pour boiling water over, wait a minute till it soaks in, add some cold so that they can eat it and bingo. The pellets, I leave overnight or all day to soak in cold water and then add hot right before I feed but that doesn’t work for me in most of the winter (they freeze) or in the summer I don’t want to leave it all day and have it go rancid in the heat
Beet pulp (shreds, pellets, all of it) is tricky to determine bioavailable iron, at least with common testing. You’re right that in general, it tests sky high in iron. But a great deal of that is inorganic and not usable by the horse. The soaking/rinsing does remove surface iron, though not anything inside. It does pull out some additional sugar though.
When I was feeding beet pulp I always soaked then rinsed. I found the pellets to be a lot cleaner than the shreds. The soaking water from the shreds was always very dark, almost black, and the bucket would have a thick layer of silt/sludge on the bottom. I soaked the pellets overnight and the leftover water was much cleaner.
I prefer the pellets for all the reasons listed above and the fact that I find them much easier to scoop. I know, silly reason. But I felt like I was always fighting with the shreds.
I never drained/rinsed my beet pulp.
We use pellets because there is a considerable savings over shredded. The other good features, easier scooping to measure, smaller bags for storage help too.No Molasses type pellets, don’t want the sugar. They eat it fine.
We use 5 gallon, round drink coolers to soak the pellets, insulation keeps them cool or warm until feeding. They are fairly easy to handle, even full. Hot water in winter, they like it warm. It usually soaks at least 8 hours. If winter temps drop below 25F, we put coolers in the slightly heated tack room during soaking. Our horses prefer non-sloppy wet feed, so if I overfill the water, I use a small mesh-sided wastebasket in a muck tub to drain off excess liquid. We feed 9 horses grain once daily, so a small sieve does not work well with that volume of wet stuff to drain. Coolers sealed tight, do seem to prevent fermentation (going rancid) during summer soaking of longer times. We use cool water to soak in summer months, beet pulp stays cooled in the soaking coolers.
I do keep a bag of shreds on hand for emergencies, when “someone” forgets to put water on the pellets at turnout. Shreds do soak up fast, but as mentioned, harder to measure, i often get the water quantity wrong here, so too wet or need to add more water, soak again, which takes longer to finish chores
Can you show a link to that mesh sided waste basket? That sounds perfect. Thanks.
