Instructions
Make a beet pulp mash by combining dry beet pulp pellets with water. Use three parts water to one part beet pulp. Allow the mixture to sit for about 10-12 hours before feeding it to your sheep. Sheep like this easy-to-chew concoction, and they gobble it more slowly when it is wet, so they do not choke on it as much as dry feed. Wet beet pulp contains, by volume, 10 percent crude protein, 20 percent crude fiber, 5 percent ash, 0.8 percent calcium, 0.1 percent phosphorous, 0.2 percent potassium, and 0.22 percent sulfur.
Make your sheep very happy by feeding them beet pulp dried with molasses, either as is or soaked in water to create a mush (three parts water to one part beet pulp dried with molasses). Sheep love the sweetness, and the molasses adds another 2 percent of crude protein to their diet, although it reduces the crude fiber content by 4 percent. It increases the potassium to 1.8 percent and the sulfur to 0.36 percent. Avoid feeding molasses to sheep in the summer, though, because it attracts flies.
Give sheep only small amounts of beet pulp as part of a maintenance diet. Large amounts can cause rumen problems and can act as a laxative. Add 15 percent beet pulp to barley-based finishing diets to improve average daily weight gain in finishing lambs. Sheep tend to consume greater quantities of wet beet pulp than dry. Beet pulp consumption increases milk production in ewes in the spring but appears to have no effect on milk quantities during winter months.
How to Feed Beet Pulp to a Sheep
Sheep owners sometimes feed beet pulp to their sheep to increase protein in their diets. Shepherds usually augment protein intake during a ewe's last month of pregnancy and the first few weeks of lactation. Beet pulp comes from sugar beets. Manufacturers cut sugar beets into strips and soak them in hot water to extract the sugar. Beet pulp is the fiber residue of this process. They dry the pulp and compress it into pellets. Purchase beet pulp (with or without molasses) in pellet form in 50-pound bags.