Sweet

Today at least mainly summer but still very windy and above all freezing cold. Farrier Richard was here at the crack of dawn to do the horses and sought refuge in the stables. A hardy fellow, he normally likes to work outside even in icy mid winter, but the combination of wind and cold was too much for him.

I took off for Ottobeuren with the dogs for a walk and then to the agricultural merchants to get some chicken feed, mineral food supplement for the horses as well as the main ingredient of the horses twice a day feed, sugar beet pulp called sugar beet "Schnitzel" in Germany. Unlike the real thin, sugar beet is vegan!

Just to explain (sorry to those who have read this 50 times before) sugar beet pulp is the waste from the manufacture of sugar. Modern production systems allow almost 100% extraction and to make the pulp "attractive" as an animal feed, they add back around 5% molasses. The pulp is a relatively cheap (around €20/100kg) feed and as I learnt on an equine nutrition online course from Edinburgh's vet school, an excellent feed which can even replace up to 50% of the staple food-of-choice, hay ration.

Bulk, no name sugar beet pulp from the agricultural merchants costs 10% of what the average cheapest horse feed costs and most of these contain ingredients that probably 90% of all privately held, "hobby" horses don't need - loads of sugars, starches, grain and fillers that simply make them fat. Have to admit our horses are usually also too fat but that's largely due to lack of exercise.

Rosie our Quarter Horse shouldn't though even get the sugar beet as she has a disorder that means she should be on zero sugar and starch but we have to feed her large quantities of vegetable oil (pint or 500ml day) so that she gets her energy needs. There are two companies that make molasses free sugar beet feed for horses, one a Dutch company, the other, the well known UK Dodson & Horrell whose product, despite the fall in UK Sterling is still the more expensive. However despite a trial with the Dutch product, Rosie only likes the UK stuff. Costs though €118/100kg compared to the €20 of our standard pulp.

Given that the UK still seems to be hell bent on Brexit which will mean the collapse of the UK sugar beet industry in favour of the raw cane sugar from non EU overseas countries, I suspect Dodson & Horrell will drop this product in 2019, so any UK horse owners that use it, be prepared to start using expensive imported Dutch feed. To be on the safe side, we are already getting Rosie used to the 5% molasses product just in case the market place here in the Rest EU27 is emptied by the demand created with the UK being taken out.

I don't think the Brexiteers have a clue what they are doing. Neither did I when I tried to complete the outdoor wiring job that has been plaguing me for days but somehow I muddled through all the various 3 and 5 wire combinations and without whacking out any circuit breakers or having sparks flying around my head, by evening various outdoor lights were working. Unlike our dishwasher which has been playing up for months. Angie had switched it on in the afternoon to get a load done while the sun was producing "free" PV electricity and the circuit breaker kept going off. She was convinced it was me causing the problem but it turned out that it is probably the automatic water flow controller for some reason not allowing any water to get to the unit and the heat build up causing the system to trip. Annoying but given the machine is around 30 years old, I guess one has to face the fact that it is destined for it's Exit.