Mangels for feed

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I'm confused about the use of mangels for stock feed. All the books I've read say never feed the tops. I thought mangels were basically large beets, and I eat the beet tops off of my other varieties. I grew an experimentation 'plot' last year and fed the topless beets to my uncles horses. They preferred them over the sugar cubes! Are the tops poisonous, like rhubarb, or am I missing something? Thanks!

-- Karla Bloomfield (kbsangria@aol.com), September 25, 2000

Answers

Mangels are of the root family, like beets, rather than the ruhbarb, tomato or potato families, and thus their tops should be OK as feed.

Mangels were once a key winter feed item on small farms. Some varities could yield as much as 35 tons to the acre, which is a lot of feed. Once harvested they were put into something like a root cellar like cordwood and chopped up for just about all types of livestock. I suspect they would overwinter in the garden if covered with stray. Remember reading somewhere one person hung one in the chicken house so the chickens could peck at it.

A reference I have says at one time seed for the Colossal Long Red were carried by Shumway Seeds in Rockford IL (61101).

This is what my old copy of Feeds and Feeding by Morrison says about them: Mangels, or mangel wurzels (Beta vulgaris, var.), are very low in dry matter, having only 9.2%. Yet due to the heavy yields - 20-30 tons per acre on good soil and under favorable conditions - they produce a large amount of dry matter per acre. Because they stand well out of the ground, mangels are much more easily harvested than sugar beets, and they also keep better in winter storage than sugar beets, rutabagars or turnips. They likewise stand drought and hot weather better than rutabagas or turnips. Mangels should not be fed until after they have been stored for a few weeks, as the freshly-harvested roots may cause scouring. Half-sugar mangels, which are crosses between sugar beets and mangels, are richer in dry matter and sugar than are mangels. Mangels are a very satisfactory feed for dairy cows, beef cattle or sheep, except that they should not be fed to rams or wethers for long periods, because of possible danger from urinary calculi. In New York tests 700 pounds of mangels equalled 100 pounds of dried beet pulp in feeding value for dairy cows. For dairy cows, mangels and sugar beets have an advantage over rutabagars and turnips, because there is no danger of tainting the milk.

Feeding chopped up mangel roots to livestock is about like giving them candy due to the natural sugar in them.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), September 26, 2000.


Maybe the tops are too high in nitrogen or something. Isn't a lot of nitrogen bad for animals? I know that too much green grass is bad for them.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), September 26, 2000.

I read that too many beet tops (how many are too many?) can cause a hoof disease in horses that is incurable. It causes the hoof to come loose from the foot. The article said it can happen to cows, too.

-- Lela Picking (Stllwtrs55@aol.com), October 01, 2000.

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