The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: ScotsGirl on January 08, 2013, 06:19:28 pm
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My Boer x girls are due from mid Feb to late March. How much do I increase feeding up to that date? At the moment they get a beaker full each which I think is about 6oz twice a day. As there shape is different from sheep I am not sure how to tell if losing condition. They look good to me except dairy doe but she is bigger and scruffier coat.
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Personally I up their feed a wee bit in the last month or so but I am very cautious as with pygmy's I don't wanting the kids getting too big.
I feed all mine individually and take note if they seem to wolf it down or a bit not bothered and try and regulate accordingly.
Pygmy's, so I have been told need 2 - 8 oz of concentrates per day so I go by 2oz twice a day and up that as I think they need it.
I'm sure someone will give you better facts and figures for bigger goats.
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I have pygmy and dairy goats. To be honest, I never feed any goats a lot of concentrates (as in goat mix) prefering high fibre diets - they have good quality chaff, and soaked sugar beet added to their goat mix, and plenty of hay or haylage.
I suppose I am cautious because many years ago, not long after I started breeding goats, I ....upped the in kid goats feed about a month before kidding, not overly, but what I thought was adequate. One of the females went off her legs, and was not well at all. Took her to the vet, and I got a right roasting for giving her concentrates - that had caused her illness.
To this day, that vets words ring in my ears"If you want to increase anything, increase her hay intake!"
It turned out ok - two weeks later Penny kidded twins
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Actually I disagree - I increase the feed for my kidders from about 8 to 6 weeks before kidding, (from no concentrates) gradually to be at milker ration level just before kidding. The reason for concentrates (goat mix, soaked shreds, oats, a few dairy nuts) is that they will not get enough energy from hay and little concentrate to make sure the kid(s) inside grow, also at the same time the rumen shrinks as kiddies take up more and more room, so they can only eat small protions at any one time.
If not enough energy they get pregnancy toxaemia/ketosis and can very quickly die.
They will also get lots of titbits - bananas, apple and any ther kind of fruit/veg they like, just so they keep eating.
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Thanks, great advice. I will stick at what I am giving unless they look poor. Little sods were running circles round me tonight when I tried to put to bed. They get lots of hay and I have started adding chaff to feed .
Is there any way of stopping goats wasting hay? All the racks seem to allow most of hay to get dropped on floor so now their bed is nearly all hay!
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Ankle your reply matches what my vet said about sheep. Too much hay in sheep can contribute to prolapse also .
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The small mesh racks stop some wastage - unfortunately goats do waste hay, and some will not eat it once it hits the floor. Although mine are pretty good at eating all their hay. Any on the floor is taken out and given either to the small pony, or the pigs.
I was just trying to work out if all my goats had full milkers rations, how much feed they would need a week for all of them......eeek .......bankrupt I would be. I think everyone should do what suits them ....all my goats look well, and milk very well, on their reduced rations. Unfortunately we cannot get proper goat mix round here, its an all round mix for sheep, goats, cows etc, and not in my opinion a match for goat mix.