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Beet pulp - what does your horse think?

Mine ADORES IT. He will literally lick his bowl clean searching for more. He gets it mixed in his food at the moment, but when I first got him, he was terribly underweight, and upon moving him to the barn where he lives now, he started getting “snacks” of beet pulp 2 to 3x a day to help him put on weight. And they will adjust the amount in his regular meals if he starts looking too ribby. (Gotta love my hard keeper)

I feed it to all of mine, originally just once a day for sand removal but now am and pm as a staple of the diet. It’s helped immensely with my senior horses who have dental issues. I’ve read that bp is great for digestive health, a sort of super food for gut bacteria. My own personal observations tend to support that, as a few of my other horses really filled out once I doubled bp, without changing the rest of the ration; an extra half or full pound of bp shouldn’t add that many calories overall, but I feel like they were better utilizing the rest of their feed.

New horses may take a week to adapt to the taste or moisture, but they all eventually enjoy it. I like feeding shreds, but pellets are more economical so that’s usually on the menu, soaked the previous feeding. Three dry quarts of pellets makes enough bp for 7 horses (about 16 quarts soaked and fluffed).

1/3 scoop beet pulp plus 2/3 scoop pelleted alfalfa, soaked then a 1/2 can grain and supps. They literally cannot wait for for their nightly mash. I have not tried it without alfalfa pellets.

My big Holsteiner was a chronic colicker when I bought him. He has not colicked in 14 months since we added a nightly mash.

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Yes it is great for adding water if the horse isn’t drinking enough and that’s causing colic. Beet pulp holds more water than anything else I’ve found and it’s innocuous, digests in the hind gut.

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I use a brand without molasses. Plenty of water. It gets mixed with ration balancer and hay pellets.

We fill an 8 quart bucket about 1/4 to 1/5 full of non-molasses beet pulp pellets and fill the rest with water and soak overnight. The bucket is then split between 4 big horses in the morning. We mix it with (according to body weight) Essential K, Zenamin, flax and supplements. The horses love it, and I love it because it adds moisture to their diet and they are not inhaling any powders from their supplements.

Mine ate it at first then became tired of it, which is why I asked about with or without molasses.

The difference in the NSC was not significant to me.

The brand I bought had the two types

I did not try the one with molasses only without and like I said he seemed to have much less gusto eating it as time went on.

I believe the difference in sugars in the beet pulp with molasses compared to no molasses was :
Without molasses: *8.7% sugar.
With Molasses : 14.2%

for a horse not sensitive to sugars and wanting to make it more appetizing the beetpulp with a little molasses added isn’t a bad choice

My horse LOVES Speedi-beet. I did regular beet pulp pellets and he was on and off. But he loves speedi-beet. It is so convenient that it soaks in 15 minutes. So in winter, after I ride I soak it and he gets the warm mash before I leave.

I’m not a big fan of any sudden additions to a horse’s diet. If you are going to feed it, feed it daily as incorporated into the diet by many of the above posters. It’s not a “treat” to the horse’s digestive system to have an inconsistent diet.

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Can someone explain why they feed beet pulp instead long stem forage in cubes? I just don’t understand what it does that is an advantage over cubes :confused:

“Beet pulp is often referred to as a “super fiber” due to its high digestibility and ease of fermentation. The reason is the lack of lignin in the fiber. Tall pastures and overly mature hay cannot be digested well by horses because of the high lignin content in the plant to give the stalk strength. In addition, high lignin content fibers like peanut hulls, oat hulls and rice hulls have very low fermentation properties and are, therefore, very low in caloric content. Beet pulp, on the other hand, has about the same caloric content as oats. It is unusual to have a fiber product that is easier on the horse’s digestive system and still provides the calorie content of a grain product. Furthermore, in the shredded form, the beet pulp provides some additional fiber length, often referred to as scratch factor, which is lacking in many alternative fiber sources and explains why shredded beet pulp is preferred over pelleted beet pulp in equine diets.”

It goes on.

https://www.triplecrownfeed.com/feedpost/what-is-beet-pulp-horse-feed-2/

My two love it. The pony wasn’t convinced at first, but the big guy can’t wait. His is essentially soup and he drinks the water as well.
On the question of why not cubes instead. I wish I could, but my guy eats so fast he chokes. Ideally, he would be on long stem hay only, but that isn’t possible. The worst choke came from chopped hay, the second worst from pelleted alfalfa. (both had been turned into mash) As odd as it sounds, given BP’s reputation for causing choke, it is the only thing I’ve found that I can make truly soupy and still be palatable. I feed it mixed with Carb-guard, which tends to fall apart very quickly without swelling or binding.

You need to do more research. Seriously.

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I started feeding it about a year ago to add weight to a TB. Then I started giving my easy keepers a bit to help the powdered supplements go down with their pelleted ration balancer. They all love it and my mini now won’t eat anything else! I started with beet pulp with molasses and gradually transitioned to without molasses.

I find most horses tend to like it. I soak and rinse it so all the flavor is gone but my horses still inhale it, although full disclosure there are some supplements and oil mixed in for my hard keeper.