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Sugar Beets for feed

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LazyWP

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We are getting a bunch of rotten sugar beets. Guess they didn't get them protected well enough, and froze LOTS of them. They are using an asphalt milling machine, to chunk them up. Right now we are piling them in a concrete bunker. Plan is, is to mix 4 to 1 of beets to Triticale. Pile it and pack it like corn silage. Last night when I left, they were trying to contain the liquid running out of the pile.
I have never been around beets, but it sounds like they are about 85% water.
 
My bet would be if you put rotten feed in storage you'll get rotten feed out sounds like a manure pile to me skipping the cow.
 
Wouldn't it make a difference whether they were 'rotten', or fermented? And someone unfamiliar with fermentation as a preservation method might think there was no difference.

In this case there may or many not be, but don't sugar beets have a high sugar content? And fermentation uses sugar and liquid which could include the frozen and thawing juices of the beets. Not sure that would work, but might depend on how they were stored. And just basing my idea on how pickles, or wines or beer are made.

mrj
 
A lot of wet pulp is fed in this area. By area I mean any where within 60 or so miles of a Western Sugar factory. The jury is still out on the feeding of the shredded frozen beets. Due to moisture content, corn is cheaper, but if all your other ingredients are dry I can see the use. Our outfit is backgrounding grass cattle on pulp, ground wheat straw and minor amounts of everything else needed. Our version of waste candy I guess.
 
It always amazes me just how quick we all are to judge someone for doing something different.
Frozen sugar beets, small or spoiled potatoes, "bull frog alfalfa", are all just a cheap source of feed.
We mixed and packed over 300 tons of frozen beets. They cost just over $13/ton layed in. We had the triticale on hand, but to buy it I would guess it would range around $30/ton. Figure the cost of mixing and packing it, and we are somewhere around $55 to 60/ton total. As sticky as it is, I am sure the sugar content is HIGH. Ought to make tremendous feed here in a month or so. Just the beets alone were starting to heat before we mixed them, and what we mixed last week smelled sweet. Who knows, we may have a bunch of Herefords running around drunk on Rum. :D
 
LazyWP said:
It always amazes me just how quick we all are to judge someone for doing something different.
Frozen sugar beets, small or spoiled potatoes, "bull frog alfalfa", are all just a cheap source of feed.
We mixed and packed over 300 tons of frozen beets. They cost just over $13/ton layed in. We had the triticale on hand, but to buy it I would guess it would range around $30/ton. Figure the cost of mixing and packing it, and we are somewhere around $55 to 60/ton total. As sticky as it is, I am sure the sugar content is HIGH. Ought to make tremendous feed here in a month or so. Just the beets alone were starting to heat before we mixed them, and what we mixed last week smelled sweet. Who knows, we may have a bunch of Herefords running around drunk on Rum. :D
Click to expand...

We want pictures. :lol: :lol: :wink:
 
LazyWP said:
It always amazes me just how quick we all are to judge someone for doing something different.
Frozen sugar beets, small or spoiled potatoes, "bull frog alfalfa", are all just a cheap source of feed.
We mixed and packed over 300 tons of frozen beets. They cost just over $13/ton layed in. We had the triticale on hand, but to buy it I would guess it would range around $30/ton. Figure the cost of mixing and packing it, and we are somewhere around $55 to 60/ton total. As sticky as it is, I am sure the sugar content is HIGH. Ought to make tremendous feed here in a month or so. Just the beets alone were starting to heat before we mixed them, and what we mixed last week smelled sweet. Who knows, we may have a bunch of Herefords running around drunk on Rum. :D
Click to expand...

When you start off a post with "WE GOT A BUNCH OF ROTTEN BEETS" what else are we to assume from the guys around here those Herefords should stay fat on a hope and a prayer.
 
Back in the mid 1970s we put up a " High moisture" Grain bin - - - I was feeding about 100 head of feeders twice a day - - - I would drive the cattle out of the lot with the bin and bunks, scatter Mooreman's supplement in the bunks then about 10 five gallon buckets of "high moisture" shelled corn - - - it smelled like beer! The cattle loved it and you cannot believe how gentle they became. Feed out well but the interior of the bin was a disaster and we used it for dry corn ever after.

Cattle love to be drunk!
 

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