Speedibeet 20kg

British Horse Feeds Speedi-Beet – 20kg

Speedi-Beet is unmolassed sugar beet pulp cooked by a patented process into a flake that takes up water in minutes rather than hours. British Horse Feeds put the sugar at a guaranteed 5% and the starch at 0%, which is what puts it in front of traditional molassed shreds — those can carry up to 18% sugar — for any horse whose sugar and starch intake is being watched.

Soaked, it is a highly digestible soluble fibre that behaves like a slow-release energy source rather than a cereal, and it swells enormously, so a small dry weight makes a generous feed. The soaking is not optional and not a matter of judgement: British Horse Feeds state plainly that the product should never be fed dry.

Performance & Benefits

• Quick-soaking flake — 10 minutes in cold water, against hours for traditional shreds or pellets.
• Unmolassed, with a guaranteed sugar limit of 5% and 0% starch.
• High in soluble fibre, which is readily fermented in the hindgut and yields slow-release energy.
• Swells to many times its dry volume, so a small scoop makes a full, satisfying feed.
• A useful way of getting water into a horse that will not drink enough, particularly in winter.
• 20kg sack, the size most yards buy.

Suitable For

• Horses and ponies whose starch intake has to be minimised, including those prone to laminitis or to tying-up.
• Poor doers needing non-heating calories alongside forage.
• Good doers, fed in small amounts as a carrier for a balancer.
• Older horses and horses with poor teeth, who manage a soft soaked feed better than long fibre.
• Horses that need encouraging to take on fluid.
• Not a complete feed on its own — it carries little in the way of vitamins and minerals, so a balancer alongside it does that job.

Feeding

• Soak before every feed: one part Speedi-Beet to five parts water by weight, for 10 minutes in cold water.
• Make it up fresh for each feed. Soaked beet pulp ferments, and in warm weather it goes off within hours.
• Introduce it gradually over several days, as with any change of feed.
• Feed alongside forage, and add a balancer to supply the vitamins and minerals fibre alone does not.
• Feeding rates for your horse's bodyweight are published by British Horse Feeds and printed on the sack.

Composition & Analysis

• Composition: unmolassed sugar beet pulp, cooked by British Horse Feeds' patented process into quick-soaking flakes.
• British Horse Feeds guarantee a sugar limit of 5% and give the starch content as 0%.
• By comparison, British Horse Feeds state that molassed sugar beet shreds can contain up to 18% sugar.
• British Horse Feeds publish a full typical analysis sheet for Speedi-Beet; the remaining figures on it could not be retrieved when this page was written, so only their published sugar and starch figures are quoted here.
• Supplied as a 20kg sack.

Care & Caution

• Never feed Speedi-Beet dry. British Horse Feeds' own instruction is that the product should never be fed dry, and unsoaked beet pulp swells in the gullet and the stomach.
• Soak for the full 10 minutes at one part feed to five parts water by weight, every time. A partly soaked feed is not a soaked feed.
• If a horse gets at the dry flakes, British Horse Feeds advise giving small amounts of water to drink at frequent intervals and walking the horse. Call your vet at once if it shows any sign of choke or colic.
• Store the sack sealed and off the floor, where a loose horse or pony cannot get into it.
• Do not feed soaked beet that has stood and started to ferment or smell sour.