Feeding fodder beet

WHF

New Member
Location
South west
If we were to replace some of the barley in our intensive barley finishing ration with beet at a ratio of 5 of beet to one of barley. Fully balanced with protein and fibre, what percentage of the barley could we replace, 50%,.....70%,... all of it.......??
Just trying to make things cheaper and stretch barley each year.

Many Thanks in advance.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
If we were to replace some of the barley in our intensive barley finishing ration with beet at a ratio of 5 of beet to one of barley. Fully balanced with protein and fibre, what percentage of the barley could we replace, 50%,.....70%,... all of it.......??
Just trying to make things cheaper and stretch barley each year.

Many Thanks in advance.

For starters, what variety of beet is it? DM% can vary between 12 and 25%, which obviously makes a huge difference to any calculations.
Next question is what price can you get that beet delivered for (& what price Barley, on Farm)? Beet certainly isn’t cheap this year, on a DM basis.

On a DM basis, there isn’t a huge difference in ME or CP between Barley and beet, but barley will be far higher in starch (so much better for finishing ration) and a high proportion of (wet) beet will fill them up, limiting intake. However, I suspect a bit included in the ration for variety would likely serve to increase DMI of the total ration.
 

WHF

New Member
Location
South west
We would be looking to buy/grow a high dm variety. Potentially buying some in the new year to see how it feeds. If it works we would grow it to replace some of the barley in the ration, with a growing cost of say £550 per acre at 35 tonne, £15/tonne, 5kg to a kg of barley is a long way off barley even at its lows. Just wanting peoples opinions on feeding it. Thanks
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
We would be looking to buy/grow a high dm variety. Potentially buying some in the new year to see how it feeds. If it works we would grow it to replace some of the barley in the ration, with a growing cost of say £550 per acre at 35 tonne, £15/tonne, 5kg to a kg of barley is a long way off barley even at its lows. Just wanting peoples opinions on feeding it. Thanks

But that beet would be worth £30-35/t to load in somebody’s trailer on your farm this year, as opposed to Barley at £165-170/t. It becomes a much closer calculation then, depending on DM% of the beet of course.
 

WHF

New Member
Location
South west
If we look at it from another angle, that next year beet isn’t worth that figure and there isn’t the demand either. So for instance I’ve drilled 50 acres of beet and it does 35 tonne/acre, spring barley only yields 2.5 tonne to the acre. At 5:1 I have the equivilate of 350 tonne of barley off 50 acres rather than 125 tonnes of barley, does this not make it stack up...? Currently all our barley needs are grown on farm depending on cattle numbers so this would also mean I could then sell 225 tonne of barley at say next year £140/tonne - £31,500. If we have a lot of cattle on farm and need more than a 1000 tonne we have to buy it in and this would eliminate doing so. Another advantage of the beet is we currently grow 100+ acres of turnips so would be able to reduce this and utilise the beet tops post harvest.

Thanks
 
If we look at it from another angle, that next year beet isn’t worth that figure and there isn’t the demand either. So for instance I’ve drilled 50 acres of beet and it does 35 tonne/acre, spring barley only yields 2.5 tonne to the acre. At 5:1 I have the equivilate of 350 tonne of barley off 50 acres rather than 125 tonnes of barley, does this not make it stack up...? Currently all our barley needs are grown on farm depending on cattle numbers so this would also mean I could then sell 225 tonne of barley at say next year £140/tonne - £31,500. If we have a lot of cattle on farm and need more than a 1000 tonne we have to buy it in and this would eliminate doing so. Another advantage of the beet is we currently grow 100+ acres of turnips so would be able to reduce this and utilise the beet tops post harvest.

Thanks

That's assuming you get the beet harvested with a machine that doesn't smash up the tops to nothing. Most round here use 6 row machines that flail the tops off and they are wilted and gone in a few days.
 

Phil P

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
North West
After growing beet (sugar and fodder) for many years I wouldn’t count on getting 35t/a averages especially if you get a year like this one! Yes there’s potential for a 40t crop, however there’s also the reality of a 15-20t crop. I’d definitely do your sums on 30t averages rather than 35t over the whole acreage.
Can’t help with the feed ratio though sorry.
 

Hfd Cattle

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Hereford
That's assuming you get the beet harvested with a machine that doesn't smash up the tops to nothing. Most round here use 6 row machines that flail the tops off and they are wilted and gone in a few days.
I was always under the belief that you shouldn't graze beet tops till they have been cut at least 10 days ......have I been told a myth ?
Last year I let 20 acres of tops to a neighbour and he wouldn't put sheep on for a week.
 
I was always under the belief that you shouldn't graze beet tops till they have been cut at least 10 days ......have I been told a myth ?
Last year I let 20 acres of tops to a neighbour and he wouldn't put sheep on for a week.

I've heard that one. I don't think it would be a problem, we certainly grazed a lot of our fodder beet off last year,in situ, very successfully and only harvested a small amount. They seem to enjoy the tops best ,and will eat them first before the roots.
 
I feed beet and I feed barley. There is nothing in my opinion that beats barley for finishing. I even believe that the ko weights are improved with barley. I feed a lot of beet probably because of its handiness to feed compared to barley. I also don’t sell fat cattle to any degree only stores.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
I was always under the belief that you shouldn't graze beet tops till they have been cut at least 10 days ......have I been told a myth ?
Last year I let 20 acres of tops to a neighbour and he wouldn't put sheep on for a week.

It’s a myth. There is plenty of beet being fed in situ these days, here included, which doesn’t get wilted at all.

However, the tops are high in oxalic (sp?) acid, which locks up calcium iirc. Animals with a high ca requirement can go down with Ca deficiency if introduced quickly, but I find a bag of loose GP mins in a bucket prevents that easily enough.
It’s also rapidly digestible energy too, so you can get acidosis (particularly in cattle) if you introduce too much of it, too quickly. No different to starting them on Barley. I assume wilting would lose enough of the energy to help with that, but also loses valuable feed.

The calcium/loose mins thing comes from experience. I once didn’t bother, as the ewes had already been grazing a bit of the beet field. We lifted the rest and I let them over the lot to tidy it up. The next morning, I had 18 comatose ewes (from 500) scattered round a 17ac field. T’was a hectic morning with the calcium jabs, but only lost one in the end.
 
Last year we pulled several teleporter buckets full of beet including there tops, and tipped them in with the ewes , a few days before we fenced them on to the beet, this seemed to get them used to it and can only remember one case of calcium deficiency. Also it cleared a path for the electric fence (y).
 

d-wales

Member
Location
Wales
It’s a myth. There is plenty of beet being fed in situ these days, here included, which doesn’t get wilted at all.

However, the tops are high in oxalic (sp?) acid, which locks up calcium iirc. Animals with a high ca requirement can go down with Ca deficiency if introduced quickly, but I find a bag of loose GP mins in a bucket prevents that easily enough.
It’s also rapidly digestible energy too, so you can get acidosis (particularly in cattle) if you introduce too much of it, too quickly. No different to starting them on Barley. I assume wilting would lose enough of the energy to help with that, but also loses valuable feed.

The calcium/loose mins thing comes from experience. I once didn’t bother, as the ewes had already been grazing a bit of the beet field. We lifted the rest and I let them over the lot to tidy it up. The next morning, I had 18 comatose ewes (from 500) scattered round a 17ac field. T’was a hectic morning with the calcium jabs, but only lost one in the end.
[emoji15][emoji15][emoji15] ahhhh I've just lost 4 ewes out of 400 that I put on to beet on xmas eve, bloody things had smashed the electric fence down and I assume gorged themselves [emoji107][emoji107]
 

MJT

Member
As @neilo says...

Can’t feed big quantities of tops if they haven’t wilted . Oxalic in them locks up calcium and kills them . Lost 5-6 last year , would have lost a lot more if hadn’t used 5 bottles of calcium and jabbed a lot of the ropey ones .

Would have probably lost less but my vet insisted calcium wasn’t the problem when saw them in morning :banghead:. When no inprovement by afternoon went with my gut and go jab happy with the calcium . Good job I did or would have been carnage by next morning
 

Hfd Cattle

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Hereford
I was thinking more of harvested beet where the tops are left in the field not so much grazed tops. My cousin runs the sheep over his beet before he lifts it . They take the tops off and then he lifts the beet as he hasn't got a topper on his old machine. He never has a problem but I think it's the left over tops that could harm by the sound of the thread but once left for a few days they then become all right ?
 

WHF

New Member
Location
South west
I feed beet and I feed barley. There is nothing in my opinion that beats barley for finishing. I even believe that the ko weights are improved with barley. I feed a lot of beet probably because of its handiness to feed compared to barley. I also don’t sell fat cattle to any degree only stores.

In your experience of feeding beet have you found it to have a negative effect on intakes, or increase them with beet being very palatable?
 

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