By-Products 167 



With dairy cattle the quantity of tops fed should be 

 much smaller than with beef, because the former should 

 have more concentrates and less bulky feed. Fed in 

 moderate quantities, equaling about one-third of the total 

 ration, the silage increases the yield of milk; but with 

 unlimited access to the tops, cows do not maintain their 

 milk flow. Each acre of beets should furnish from one 

 hundred fifty to two hundred days' feed for an ordinary 

 dairy animal. About the same quantity of siloed tops 

 may be used as of corn silage. 



Sheep do well on beet tops, but care must be taken 

 that they eat only moderate quantities at first. Because 

 of the desirable flavor and color of their flesh, sheep fed 

 on beet tops are in great demand. Pasturing sheep on 

 the tops is perhaps the most common practice, but it is 

 dangerous not only because of the scouring effect of large 

 quantities of tops on the animals but also because sheep 

 tend to pack the soil, and thereby to destroy its tilth, par- 

 ticularly if the land is wet. Sheep are usually fattened 

 on beet by-products during the winter, and it is more de- 

 sirable that the tops be siloed than pastured or fed dry, 

 since the silage is always warm and convenient to handle 

 in winter. Satisfactory, rapid, and economical gains 

 have been realized from feeding three to four pounds of 

 beet-top silage a day together with a lessened quantity 

 of hay or other supplementary feeds. 



If the land is not so wet that it causes the soil to pack, 

 either sheep or hogs may be pastured on the remaining 

 tops after the siloing or stacking has been done. Con- 

 siderable feed is left in the form of undug beets and 

 scattered tops that these animals relish. Since pork 



