Mangel Wurzels

By: Marieanne Coursen, Agricultural Interpreter
This time of year our farm animals rely on feeds we have stored away for them. Horses, cows and sheep do occasionally paw through the snow to eat the grass underneath, but mostly they look to us for their sustenance. This usually means dry hay and grain, but in addition, the nineteenth century farmer often fed pumpkins, cabbage and root crops to the animals.

My favorite root crop grown for livestock is the mangel wurzel.

Mangel wurzels are a type of beet with a red or yellow root the shape of a large, fat carrot that sticks halfway out of the ground. The leaves can be fed fresh to the animals through the summer as long as they are not entirely removed until just before the roots are harvested. The roots are supposed to be able to grow as large as 2 to 3 feet long and 4 to 8 inches in diameter! The ones I have grown have never been more than about eighteen inches long and maybe five inches in diameter.

They are harvested in the fall and stored in an environment where they won’t dry out or freeze, either underground (in a simple hole or a root cellar) or in a protected heap on top of the ground, called a clamp. My mother told me that on the farm where she grew up in Germany, a small farm building had a cellar under it where all the root crops were stored, and she would have to go down and bring up baskets full to feed to the animals. In England it seems to be more common to store them in heaps above the ground.

The general rule is to wait until after Christmas to feed mangel wurzels. Apparently a change occurs in storage that makes the root less likely to cause scours (diarrhea). The watery, juicy nature of the root makes it very appealing to cows, sheep and horses, especially after eating dry hay for so long. We have a nifty chopper to break up the root and make it easier to eat.

Chickens enjoy them also and I like to hang one in their house for them to peck at:

I have tried storing the mangel wurzels two different ways. Here at the museum we dug a hole in the ground one fall and lined it with straw. We threw our mangel wurzels in and covered them with straw and dirt and a wood cover. In January, I dug them out and found they had kept very well. They were not frozen or rotten so this method was successful as far as quality went, but I did find it extremely inconvenient to get them out. This year I decided to try the “clamp” method. I was not completely confident it would work since it is colder here than in England but then again with global warming maybe it would be OK. This time it was at my home farm. In September I made a pile of my mangel wurzels on top of a bed of straw:

I also added rutabagas and turnips, and I covered the pile with straw and dirt. After heavy rains and colder than normal temperatures this fall, I thought my crop was doomed. Well, I am happy to say that I opened the end of my pile after Christmas and found the roots in good condition. The pile seemed to have a frozen skin on it of snow, dirt and straw that was not difficult to break through. I was able to get to the roots easily and close the clamp back up by putting the frozen clumps back over the hole. It seems to work like the “Ag-Bags” that farmers store silage in.

So far I have only found a couple of turnips that rotted and they were at the bottom. I have not gotten to the mangel wurzels yet since they are at the back of the pile, but I am optimistic that they will be fine.

Root crops have never been as popular in America as in Europe for a livestock feed. Most of the information to be found about root crops like mangel wurzels comes from England where they are unable to grow corn well. Nevertheless, root crops do make my life as a small farmer more interesting and satisfying, and hopefully the animals in my care enjoy the added variety to their diet.