STOCKYARD
HORSE  DISCUSSION FORUMS

Bon & Ted

I have just started feeding Speedi Beet to my horses. Ted - 15.3hh TB very good doer, but currently light on as he has just come off spell, will be brought back into work in the next week. Darcy - Conny X Arab, currently at 12.1hh, 10 month old, certainly does ok for herself .

Everywhere I have found says to feed 1.5 kgs dry Speedi Beet...that would make absolute bucket loads soaked I can't believe how much it expands!!

How long can you soak it for? The bag says 10 minutes, but can I leave it for longer...say overnight?
Do your horses like it? If not what did you use to disguise the taste. I have sniffed it and it smells bland and feels like paper mache lol. I certainly wouldn't eat it . I don't want to disguise the taste with sugarry stuff ie. molasses because that really defies the purpose of speedi beet.

I have fed it 2 nights in a row and both nights Ted has had a pick through it but left it for the delicious grass lol. I'm starting to think that I should stop hard feeding until they are over the different grass/oaten hay...

Oh and I am feeding it with lucerne, copra, BOSS, Advantage and FFS (for the filly only). I haven't yet worked out weights because they only came home Sunday night...

Cheers

Bonnie

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simbin

Ok when I was feeding it they were getting about an icrecream container after it had been soaked. Doesnt need to be soaked for long. I would be using it instead of copra as you are basically wasting your money as both feeds are doing exactly the same. I have always fed one or the other. You wouldnt need to feed 1.5kg that would be the amount to feed if your horses werent getting any other grains or feed. When I fed it they were getting chaff, speedibeat, soaked lupins and one of my tb's put on the most amazing amount of weight. We had to cut down on the lupins. All the horses I have known on speedibeat have gotten use to the taste very quickly. I must say though they didnt have access to a lot of green feed.

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madison

Hi, I'm feeding it to my 10.2hh pony who hasn't got many teeth and he can only manage 3 cups dry before I swell it because it just makes too much bulk for him. I feed it with 200grms of fine cut Lucerne chaff, 700grms of Grower and Weaners and his bits and pieces and he seems to be doing well.

norrishbex

I feed my 16.2 hh TB 2.5 cups per feed, and he gets fed twice a day. He is in full work, with quite a bit of fitness work. I wouldn't change his feed for anything, and we have a few horses at the agistment centre that have changed onto it and having great results. Traditionally, sugarbeet is soaked for 12 to 24 hours and comes in a cube form, similar to pony cube size. Speedibeet has been altered so that it can be prepared quicker (hence the name), although I would prepare donny's speedibeet in the evening for his morning feed when I had to do it myself.

rimes

I have just finished my first bag of speedi-beet and love it. I am feeding it to mare 30yr old mare and she has put on weight.

I feed her 2 scoops of Gumnuts
2 x 4ltr icecream container of white chaff
1 x 4ltr of lucerne chaff
I wet this mix with water
The gumnuts weighed in at 1kg per scoop equals-2kg per feed
The white chaff weighed in at 500grams per full container equals-1kg per feed
The lucerne chaff weighed in at 400grams per container equals- 400grams per feed.
This hard feed kept the weight on my old girl but I slowly introduced Speedi-beet until she was getting 400grms(dry) with each nightly feed. I soak it in a 9lt bucket of cold water for 10 minutes and then pour the whole lot in her dry feed and mix it through. She loves this and eats the lot although it does take her 2hrs+ lol. She has put on weight and is looking very good atm. I am happy with the speedi-beet. I lock her up while she is eating her hard feed and let her out once it is finished.
She only gets fed at night as she refuses to eat hard feed in the morning, she prefers grazing all day

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RIP my Beautiful Mistyman 15 Oct 1973 - 2 June 2007
My 1st horse-we spent 27yrs 2 mths 2 days together. I miss him everyday

Tintara

I first bought it to feed to my Cushings / IR mare and it did take her a little while to get used to it. I have also found that even with the very low sugar content it still has a little too much sugar for her so I soak it in heaps of water for a little longer than the recommended time then drain it to remove as much sugar as possible. A friend in Qld said that friends of hers had had the same problem and they did the same thing as I was doing. I then use that water to soak Grower / Weaner pellets and speedibeet for my 2 old geldings (33 & 35+ respectively). They love it with the mushy pellets and are thriving.

They get around an icecream container (soaked quantity) and about 700 gms of pellets (pre soaked quantity) each feed. I chuck the whole lot in together and soak overnight for the morning feeds and all day for the evening feeds so that the pellets are nice and soft so the speedibeet gets that amount of soaking too but if you don't overdo the water it doesn't get too mushy. I've found it doesn't make much difference soaking it for that long because the pellets take up the excess water.

One gelding is 16 hands and solid and the other is 13 hands and along with lucerne and oaten chaff plus a bit of pasture they are doing extremely well on it and I'm not exactly feeding huge quantities of it either.

abi

speedi beet is fantastic for putting on weight, is suitable for laminitics as well. . i find it none heating and excellent at re hydrating on a hot day. it mega high fibre, i have fed it for years and years.

Desmo

Ditto the above - used to buy heaps of it. Much easier than soaking cubes overnight like in the old days

shelllouise19

if ur horse is a gelding, try adding a little Fenugreek powder, there was a scientific paper done on it which says that Fenugreek, banana and cherry are the most favoured flavours of horses, why i dont know cos it reeks something foul!

at 1% it can mask the worming powders!

just dont give it to pregnant mares cos it will cause them to spit out the foal-causes contractions.
but it is fine after the foal is born cos it increases milk production!

*~"´•.å£3x.•`"~*

Hello! I fed it to my tb as a fattener (from memory it was only about 500g unsoaked) and it worked really well. Don't soak for too long (ie more than a day) as it can go off pretty quickly especially in the up and coming hotter seasons. It is a good feed though I stopped feeding it because a) he didnt need it anymore as I was feeding copra and b) i found the bags I were using contained ALOT of sand.
All the best

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