Re: beet pulp

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

From: Maryanne Stroud Gabbani <maryanne@ratbusters.net>

> This does, however, bring up an interesting question from my part of the
> world. We grow sugar cane here and quite a lot of it goes through some
> primitive crushers to make sugar cane juice which is sold fresh from
street
> stands in Cairo. (No, I don't make a habit of drinking it, however. Tried
it
> and it was a bit sweet and boring for my taste) The crushed canes are then
> carted off to the countryside where they are chopped up into a sort of
> straw, maybe 1/2 in in length. The same process goes for barley straw,
wheat
> straw....don't really know about rice straw. Would the cane straw be any
> better or worse than other straw?

I guess it would depend on the amount of cane juice left in the cane
stalks---I'm assuming that because we're not talking a high-efficiency
processing, there's still a fair amount of sugar left.  Bet horses would
absolutely adore it, but I might be a bit concerned about feeding alot of
sucrose, at least until I knew just how much really was in there.  I don't
have a thing about it in my feed tables.  Might be okay, maybe Sarah knows
something more.

I know that it ferments like the dickens and was originally hoped would be a
high-value feed for ruminants when ensiled (put into an airtight silo to
ferment).  Turns out all that sugar fermented into a whole lot of sort of
fibrousy rum<g>.  Not real useful for putting on weight, but bet it was
great for keeping nasty bulls quiet.<g>

susan g