Life Savors

According to some reports that I’ve seen on television news broadcasts, sugar is supposedly Public Enemy No. 1, but I have my doubts. Our neighbor farmer grows sugar beets every year. Every single sugar beet that I’ve seen is a vegetable. And the deer and antelope that eat the beets are the shiniest, healthiest looking ruminants you’ll find anywhere.  Hubby used to feed cut-up sugar beets to his ewes years ago, and their lambs were born healthy and with so much lanolin in their wool that they were yellow.

I used to think that a cow’s diet consisted of grass, hay, and grain, with the occasional corn stalk or beet top thrown in, depending on availability. However, ranchers are learning that cattle feed can be successfully supplemented with all kinds of foods that would otherwise be thrown away. With proper nutritional adjustments, cattle are thriving on feeds supplemented with distillers’ grains and syrups, cull vegetables such as lettuce or bell peppers, dry beans—even waste cereal, candy bars, hot chocolate mix, or cherry pies!

In this season of drought and exorbitant feed costs, such supplementation can mean the difference between keeping a herd of cows or sending them to the sale barn (where they likely will be sold for slaughter). In other words, candy bars and cherry pies are actually saving lives!

Sugar beets being harvested just moments ago.

 



“Kind words are like honey -- sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.”          –PROVERBS 16:24