Cooperative

Off in the morning to get in the winters ration of sugar beet pulp for our horse Sultan. He doesn't need it and it doesn't do him any good (see N.B:) but morally satisfies his owner's motto "If I think I would want to eat it, then he gets it". That is why our chickens, cats and dog are stuffed with all sorts of junk and/or expensive human food that is just as likely to make them ill and overweight than happy. But who am I to express an opinion.

A bit like Brexit, if you want to remain in the EU you are a traitor - if you want to deny your pets sweets and goodies, you are a nasty evil animal hater.

In the case of our other horse Rosie there is a very good reason for her getting sugar beet pulp, expensive special dietary stuff imported from the UK. We have tried a cheaper Dutch product but Rosie prefers her Dodson & Horrell, "By Appointment to the Queen" KwikBeet.

KwikBeet only has 5% sugar whereas the standard farmer's stuff we bought today has 19%. The KwikBeet costs €1.20/kg the poor farmers stuff €0.25! Interestingly the sugar manufacturers do an excellent job in extracting the stuff from the roots. The sugar in the dried pulp is molasses which has been added back in to make it more attractive just as the human foodstuff manufacturers do.

Rosie has a starch and sugar problem and so should not get any cereals or even treats of apples and carrots, never mind the odd maize ear we find lying on the fields. However she still needs energy and this is best done in the form of large quantities of vegetable oil, rape oil from the discount supermarket being quite adequate. However no horse or human really enjoys downing a pint of neat oil a day, hence the sugar beet is used to disguise the taste. And because Rosie gets her daily slosh, so it is only fair that Sultan doesn't miss out, his being only soaked in water. Nutritionally zero value. Most horses that are ridden for an hour or two around the lanes don't need anything more than good, low-protein, long-stalked, fibrous hay. OK - plus some selected mineral supplements to make up for local deficiencies - the days of our 4-legged friends grazing over a distance up to 100km per day to select from various herbs and grasses according to need, are long gone.

Naturally, the horses back home are busily chomping on fresh grass which is growing nicely with daytime temperatures of +20°C. One does need to be a bit careful at this time of the year as the grass is short and explodes with sugar in its tips when the early frosts are about.

Back a century or two when things were more natural! Women didn't have a say never mind a vote and even if some do-gooders had banned UK children under 9 from working, at least the 9-11-year-olds could do 8-hour shifts and the over 11's, a 10-hour day (presumably 6 days a week).

A year after that do-gooders Act in the UK, a certain German social reformer Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Raiffeisen founded the idea of a cooperative system for poor farmers allowing them to pay for seed and agricultural goods after they had sold the harvest and thus was born the Raiffeisen name that you will see all over the place in German-speaking countries for banks, agricultural supplies, rural household shops, building materials, oil, coal and gas merchants. I think we have had enough Millers this week but I think they also own flour and feed mills.

The Raiffeisen Logo is two crossed horse heads which brings us back to the start of our adventure to our local Raiffeisen store and agricultural supplies and the 250kg of pulp we loaded.

Back home I unloaded it into large ex-chemical plastic blue barrels and I would hope it lasts all winter or at least 160 days. On past form, it won't "Oh, it's so cold and wet, he needs some extra comfort food, poor fat, overweight, under-exercised Sultan".

Angie went off to visit her father in a huff!

NB - a few years ago I did an online Equine Nutrition course through Edinburgh University's Vetinary School and passed with a very good result. I can tell you that Sugar Beet Pulp is actually a very good food source for horses and can if necessary be used to replace up to 50% of the daily hay ration. It is particularly good for the stomach and the essential "brewing" process there plus it is high on fibre. It isn't necessary to soak in water before feeding although almost everybody, including us, does. Farmers don't.