Preliminary Experiments With Feeding Beet By-Products to Cattle

By-Products to Cattle W. A. HARRIS AND ROBERT H. COTTON The purposes of the present study were: 1. to compare various methods of ensiling beet tops, 2. to find how best to utilize the ensilage in cattle feeding, and 3. to compare various protein levels in a beet belt ration. The results given here are preliminary since the objectives have been only partially achieved. Ensiling was selected as a more desirable method of preserving tops than curing because of better carotene and total nutrient recovery per acre with ensiling as compared to field curing, as shown by Wilgus, et al. (3), despite a very slightly lower digestibility of the silage compared to dried beet tops (1, 2) . Maynard (4) has shown that the value of tops determined in dfferent years and places varied widely. Lionel Harris and M. A. Alexander, with lambs (5) and Folke Jarl with dairy cows (2) showed that freedom from soil was an important factor in nutritional value. In 1949, at Swink, Colorado, seven experimental trench silos were prepared, as shown in Table 1. The tops were held in the silos approximately 100 days. For each 100 pounds of material placed into a silo, approximately 80 were recovered in all cases except silo No. 3, which had 11.9 pounds of chopped alfalfa hay for each 88.1 pounds of fresh chopped beet tops. Here