Sugar beet vs. fibre/speedi beet

[Sarah2207]

Hi all,

At the moment my veteran gets fed Fibre beet and alpha-A oil, and I am considering switching the fibre beet to sugar beet instead.
Bracken is prone to loosing weight over the winter (although is looking good at the moment) and is very excitable and fizzy (being nf x tb).

Obviously the pro of swapping is the cost, and soaking time not really an issue as we usually soak at least overnight anyway, but am concerned about extra energy, and also wondering how the nutritional content differs?

Thanks!

 

[AGAGE]

I'm thinking about doing the same thing, swapping from fibre beet back to speedi-beet, as Ted prefers speedi-beet and doesn't seem interested in fibre-beet unless it has loads of pony nuts in! He would happily wolf down sugar beet on its own though! He's getting more and more fussy as he gets older.

I was under the impression that fibre-beet was more conditioning than speedi-beet, but I could be completely wrong. The speedi-beet/fibre-beet website is good, the nutritional info on there should help.

 

[Sarah2207]

Thanks for your reply but should have mentioned that I have switched from speedi beet to fibre beet this winter as its more conditioning, and it seems to be working! Just thinking of switching to normal sugar beet instead due to the cost of fibre beet, depending on the comparison between the two!

 

[martlin]

If you are thinking of the bog standard long soak sugar beet, the main difference is that it contains molasses, so is fairly high in sugar.
Speedi-beet, Kwik-beet etc are unmolassed, so their sugar content is only around 5%

 

[LucyPriory]

Ordinary sugar beet (with the molasses in) may make a fizzy horse worse.

If you want to put weight on without fizz feed oil or micronised linseed. The latter is quite economical at £1 per kilo (if you buy it from the right place).