Barb Lee
Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:01:15 -0800
Tracy,
Have you read Susan Garlinghouse's articles on beet pulp and endurance
horses? Very interesting! My horses are benefitting fromt the research
I'm doing too, since I found out the grass hay they're eating is 20% non
structural carbs, and for horses like them, NCS should be down around
10-12%. There are some pretty important changes for the horses going on
too, and the results are immediately noticeable.
As for what's in my pasture...how dear that question is to my heart!
:o) I am as fond of my pasture as I am of my sheep, especially
considering there is the equivalent live weight of microlife in one acre
of topsoil to equal one beef cow! However, that doesn't mean it's
radiant with health. In our working days and before the sheep, we had
little interest in the "excess land" (I used it as my personal horse
playground) and so we let someone come and hay it off every year,
scattering on some chemicals and absconding with whatever nutrients were
in the soil without replacing them. It was farmed out before that, and
the farm is geologically bankrupt anyway, situated on lava weathered to
red clay. I think the whole area is nutrient deficient by nature and
several generations of bad management left the pasture in a sparsely
covered, weedy mess by the time I saw the error of my ways. In the
ensuing years, with much tighter management, tons of lime and several
applications of manure, the soil is fully covered with sod and in
general, fescue predominates, which is good and bad. This fall,
suddenly, clover and vetch, absent for decades, are rocketing up
everywhere, which is a sure indicator of returning soil health. Most of
the grasses are natural, although I throw out pasture mix seed and
overseed with inoculated white clover. When the ground is strong enough
to support ryegrass and white clover, we will largely see the end of
these purchased feeds. This fall I also overseeded with chicory, which
is a deep-rooted forb that gets up around 25% protein. I don't know what
the seedlings look like to know if it is coming up. It is receiving a
lot of attention as a mineral-foraging, hardpan breaking, drought
resistant grazing plant. Once we get done with pasture improvement I
would never put a horse on it.
A lot of the advice that crops up in the grazing books is not to plant a
seed ("plant nothing but fence posts the first year") of any kind until
the soil nutrients are in place. Many of the improved seed varieties
need to be coddled and do not persist outside a tight range of
conditions, so are a waste of money if the conditions can't be met.
I just finished "Hands on Agronomy" by world famous soils expert Neal
Kinsey, and I no sooner finished the book than I found a Kinsey soils
workshop coming up in Salem in January. We have the calcium taken care
of, now I will be able to learn first hand what it will take to create a
top quality sheep pasture. Ask me in about three years what's growing
in my pasture! :o)
I found an interesting study on beet pulp entitled "Beet Pulp as a Grain
Replacement for Dairy Cows and Sheep." Sorry I do not have a link, but
I'll be it can be easily googled (which is where I found it). Several
years ago we tried using beet pulp with the sheep, but because we did
not anything about "finishing" lamb, the taste, which is entirely
subjective, was not pleasing and the meat was tough-ish. I can now
explain away 99% of the problems we had with that batch of lamb, but it
has made me gun-shy of using B/P in the last several weeks of finishing.
B/P is itself such a mild flavored substance (reminiscent of
cardboard...I've tasted it) I don't imagine it will impact the flavor
very much, but we will know more about that in a month or so.
Regards,
Barb
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tracy Wessel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info>
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 12:59 PM
Subject: [Blackbelly] Re. Feeding Trivia
> The only danger in dry beet pulp is more for horses. Beet pulp can
> expand to more than six times its size, and so between the gastric
> juices and water consumption, there is impaction risk with horses.
>
> Following your research with interest. Could it just be that in the
> end all sheep are better off with the most natural diet possible, in
> terms of flavor and quality of meat or wool? Gains are probably
> slower, but what about long term flock health and such? With the
> horse breeding industry, particularly in Kentucky, so much has been
> learned even about pasture and about creating the more natural
> pasture rather than seeding for one type of grass.
>
> That will be my next question. What's in your pasture? There are
> ruminant and poultry seed mixes available, but they are hard to come
> by and expensive... leaving the horse pasture mix the easiest to
> obtain.
>
> I can't remember which university site I found that listed beet pulp
> as a suitable roughage for sheep. But I will have to go and look to
> see if it comments on fiber or meat quality.
>
> On Dec 11, 2007, at 12:26 PM, blackbelly-
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:17:35 -0800
>> From: "Barb Lee" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Feeding Trivia
>> To: <blackbelly@lists.blackbellysheep.info>
>>
>>
>> The lambs are beginning to accept beet pulp. I will have shredded
>> B/P
>> on Wednesday (my sheep show a marked preference for un-soaked foods).
>>
>> In 30 days or thereabouts, I will come back and tell you what, if
>> any,
>> impact going to an all forage diet has on their rate of gain. The
>> lambs
>> presently average about 45 lb. with a .35 pound average daily gain
>> from
>> birth, .05 less than the minimum I would like to see. Some are over,
>> some are under. There are nine lambs.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Barb Lee
>
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>
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