Molassed or not molassed

Depends on your horse!

Mollassed beet is usually about 20% sugar, so unsuitable for laminitics or those who get hyper on high sugar feeds. However, often cheaper than some unmollassed brands and obviously the high sugar content makes it quite tempting for a horse with a poor appetite and good for disguising supplements and medicines.

Unmollassed beet is only 5% sugar and can be fed to laminitics.

Both are good sources of highly digestible fibre and useful for horses needing to gain condition as are usually about 12.5 MJDE/kg which is a similar calorie count to some conditioning cubes/mixes.
 
Depends on the reaction of the horse to sugar. I fed Shiney plain speedy beet one year and it made him really fizzy, so it was withdrawn sharpish!
 
unmolassed as excess sugar in the diet just converts to fat. I'm on a feed trial with my horse, and the feed is winergy equilibrium. He has lost loads of weight on it although I am feeding three times as much as I was before, due to the fact that I am no longer feeding molassed apple chaff.
 
I would only ever feed unmollassd sugar beet. You get the benefits of fibre without the downside of too much sugar in the diet. Few horses need that much sugar. You can buy unmollassed long soak sugar beet for approx the same price as mollassed. Its when it is quick soak it is more expensive
 
Top