The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: jaykay on September 28, 2011, 08:19:43 am
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My Ellie is getting too thin. She's been wormed-and-fluked recently, has as much Smallholder dairy goat mix as she wants (she isn't eating as much as I give her) and ad-lib hay.
I'm still milking her once a day and getting a 1-2 pints (2 is normal during the summer) and her two boys come for a bit of a suck when i let them out in the morning but are effectively weaned.
She's just wolfed down some rolled oats and she's very happy to eat any ivy, branches etc. I can still find her.
I shall be wanting to take her to the billy in a month's time or so and don't want her thin then.
What can I give her to help her add and then keep on the weight?
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Think I can help here
First of all, goat mixes... whoever makes them... do not contain the right balance of minerals needed by a milking goat. The mixes are really maintrenance feeds !!!
Lactating goats require the same minerals & COPPER as a cow !!!! This might be a surprise to some people.
Your goat is milking off her back, as the saying goes, to try and find the minerals she needs. 2pts of milk is desperately low really.
I have been working with a mineral specialist to devise a mix suitable for milkers & really all classes of goats and believe we have now achieved this.
My milkers now eat less food... average 1.5kg a day & still produce the same amount of milk.. 6-8pts in Sept, having dropped from a summer high.... their coats are excellent & they have put on weight.
If you would like to try some... PM me... this really does work.
It is quite cheap really about £5 for 2kg which will last a long time.. appr.100days +... the daily rate is 10 - 20 gr.
Fertility is also improved.
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Milking or indeed feeding kids, does take it out of a goat. Most of the goat mixes on the market are not good, as Wytsend says. My milking goats have dairy nuts, and also plenty of a good quality hay replacer mixed in. And good quality hay in vast quantities .....their grazing is still good. Mineral licks are important too.
Having said this, even on the amounts of food they are on, they are still quite lean looking, although both have nice, shiny coats.
Wytsend, is that feed like a feed balancer you would give to a horse - only a small amount required?
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No it is a powder to add to the feed.... give me a ring and I will go thro' it with you.
I have reduced the amount of concentrates I give the goats...btw the same firm produce a powder for ponies etc that also reduces the feed needed... will tell you all about it when you ring.
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would love to know about the pony/horse one as I have a boy who is on good grazing, two very large meals a day and hay ad lib and has still lost weight in the last few weeks.
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She's been getting Capravit powder added but clearly it's not enough. I'll get her some mineral drench and some dairy nuts, thank you.
She's only a small goat (an Old English) so 2 pints from only one milking a day is normal :)
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You do not want your goat fat when she is being mated - it makes problems in later stages of pregnancy much more likely.
I have found that my Golden Guernsey girls are much more prone to Pregnancy toxeamia than the BT type, who by the way is eating a good amount of dairy nuts, oats and sugarbeet, plus fresh grass and branches, milks currently at about 4 ltrs and does not put on any weight! The GG girls will put on weight much easier, and I have now taken one off all concentrates (only grass and branches), still milk her twice a day (about 2.5ltrs /day)but she will be mated by the end of October. My GG girls put on too much weight on dairy nuts - they get a mixture of dairy nuts and goat mix, and milk better on it too. Both had PT in the spring and it was a real struggle to get them through the last two weeks before kidding. Also seem to hear a lot of similar problems in the GG community.
So if you have a traditional, small boned goat and she is otherwise healthy and milks ok, I would not worry too much about her being too thin.
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Thanks Anke, you're right I don't want her to get too fat either! Will try her on a mixture of goat mix and cattle nuts and watch her weight closely. I'd like her to be a bit less thin right now.
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I find suger beet helps. I soak a small quantity (half a tuna tinful) in hot water and mix it to the coarse mix. :goat:
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Traditional feeding of our goats is no longer adequate. I realised this many years ago which is why I switched to cattle food solely.
All goat mixes contain the bare minimum of trace elements/minerals to make sure it is safe if sheep get to it. This is no good for goats whether they arre milking or not.... they NEED the same as cattle, in fact their metabolic rate is 3 times faster than a cow !!!
Because farming methods have changed, the base ingredients of feed no longer carry the natural minerals.... in fact much of the ingredients are imported. Hay also is made from farmed grasses in a lot of cases, again deficient.
Which is why I set about finding a supplement that would put back what our goats NEED to function correctly.
I have now found it.... it really works and has saved me a lot of money in feed. My milk has gone up.... I m feeding less per head and the goats look in show condition the whole year round.
My girls never get more than 1.5kg of concentrates a day.. most get less.... and the high yielders are still producing 4kg a day having kidded in February this year. If I take the supplement away, withing a few days the milk drops by as much as 1kg !!!!!!
If anybody wants more info , please PM more.
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If I decide to change mine onto cattle nuts Wytsend, what ratio of mix would you advice to introduce it into their diet? have half a bag of goat mix left (*only 2 goats currently so that lasts a while) would you suggest adding a quarter cattle nuts to 3/4 goat mix to start or less?
Only one of mine milks - she is a maiden and was producing just 8 pints a day which is now decreasing to nearer 4 (I am quite relieved as she has lost condition, only a little but all the same, some)
I also have the young whether - would he be ok on cattle nuts or does he have different feed?
thank you! x
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Yes 25% to & 75% would be about right..... gradually doing the change over roughly 10 days.
Cattle dairy nuts are suitable for ALL goats... entire or otherwise.
The minerals I descibed earlier would also make up for any shortfall in hay/haylage, however good it is. Goats would, in the wild, go searching for their minerals from herbs, soil etc.,, But in domesticity they are denied this activity.
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When I was a girl (some decades ago ;D) there was not the wide choice of feed available for any livestock, that there is nowadays. Bran for horses was a mainstay, and oats ....but then pony nuts appeared on the market. We used to feed our pones on bran and cattle rearing nuts, as thats all there was!! My first goats also had that, and did well enough.
I will ring you Wytsend re the powder!
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Thank you Wytsend. I will buy in my first bag of cattle nuts this week then! Am seeing Fay Saturday will have to find out what my new Togg girl has been used to so that when she comes I can wean her over too if neccessary. Oh so complicated to a fluff head like me!
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yup, thank you wytsend!
my girls are on cattle nuts now and doris' coat it twice as thick! nothing to do with the cold as i got sunburnt today. they really really enjoy it too.
just got to be careful not to mix it up with the ewe nuts for the sheeples....
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I would not feed a castrated male on dairy nuts - he doesn't do anything and will just get fat. He would do well on hay and grass/branches, in the winter I would relent a little and give him goat mix. Dairy nuts are 18% protein, goat mix is less.
Dairy nuts are good for high-yielding dairy breeds of goats, but not so good for Golden Guernseys and I am certain Old English would also do better on smaller amounts of them.
I now take all dry goats off dairy nuts, especially during the early part of pregnancy, and also reduce them for milkers based on their condition if they are to be mated. Goatlings seem to be especially prone to be too fat.... my own fault I have to add. Difficult to know when to stop feeding kids on higher protein feeds to make sure they grow, especially the slower growing BTs... (but my BT goatling is now on grass and branches alone, soon I wil start to feed hay rather than grass).
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Although I don't have goats, I have been interested in this conversation.
The following may or may not be relevant...
Up here the only real difference between 16% cattle and 16% sheep feed is the copper. I haven't asked the question but I imagine the same is true for 18% feeds. (I get a 20% parlour mix for Hillie; I don't think there is a 20% sheep feed - maybe Ram & Lamb Mix?)
Copper, although a necessary trace element for all species, is thought to be poisonous to sheep in large quantities. Some breeds, specifically Texels, are particularly sensitive to high levels of copper and there have been some cases of death from burst livers in Texels given copper.
In these parts, all the ground is highly deficient in copper and the farmers hereabouts have found that copper in feed and drenches doesn't harm Texels on this ground. We would all be careful not to be drenching Texels with a copper-containing drench and at the same time giving a feed containing added copper, though.
It seems that other breeds of sheep can take a lot more copper than Texels.
So firstly, do of course check the specific cattle feed you are using for your goats, but it may be that it would only really be harmful for Texel-type sheep and possibly not even then if your ground is highly copper-deficient.
I am also wondering whether an alternative to using cattle feed for your goats would be to use the equivalent (same protein %) sheep feed and, if the goats seem to need extra copper, to give them a chelated copper drench, or some other copper supplement, as appropriate?
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Problem I have with the cattle nut is that the one goat that needs it does not eat it. It tried everything but no even after 4 weeks she just does not eat them I do not want her to get even thinner. I mixed it in with the goat mix which she is not to keen either. Her favourite is soaked whole oats, rolled barley and a bit of goat mix but dairy nuts she will just leave. Oh and she also does not liek soaked sugar beet. Alfalfa and soya/grassnut pellets in small quantities is okish.
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The GG's are not very keen on the dairy nuts either, often leave them in the bowl but clean everything else out! Goats are fussy eaters!
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Not come across cow nuts before. Are they a complete feed? My girls are on Allen and Page Smallholder Dairy Goat with some suger beet and seem to do well on it.
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Yes all dairy nuts for cows are a complete feed . It is not only copper that goats require but all the same minerals/trace elements at the same level as dairy cattle.
When goats are reluctant to eat nuts/ other stuff, try a molassed coarse calf mix. Looks exactly the samer as goat mix but contains the higher level of minerals etc.
This is another reason why I have been working with a comp-any to produce this mineral mix to complement whatever people feed to there goats.
I have stipulated that higher levels of zinc (skin conditions) selenium (fertility etc) & calcium are vital for goats... they burn themselves out otherwise.
Cobalt is another problem.... it is to be withdrawn from animal feeds over the next year or two, something to do with being in short suppl;y.... so I have asked for high levels of B12 to combat this.
All of this has been put into the mix... I have trialled it... it works !!! Needs to be introduced very slowly.... but at least in feed, you know the goat has had the essential minerals........ YOU CANNOT RELY ON A GOAT TO USE LICKS they just don't or in VERY small quantities.
I have also found that I can reduce the amount of hard feed to my girls... saving money... they carry on milking the same or better... most have now been covered this year.... put on weight and generally look fantatsic.
Goats are NOT sheep and should not be fed the same... their metabolic rate is roughly 3 times faster than a cow and they can get rid of surplus elements they do not require.
If you think about the body weight of a goat, how much milk she produces for that weight.... then think about a cow & how much the average one produces. Just how amazing is a goat !!!!!!
Perhapsd it is now clearer why we need to feed our girls for what they produce both in milk and then consider the number of kids she produces. A cow has 1 calf.
Apart from all the above, dairy nuts are much cheaper than goat mixes !!!!!!
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I could only get calf nuts, they are having to order me some dairy nuts.
At least it's a change of food and Ellie's eating them well, mixed in with her goat mix. Of course the little boys think they would prefer them too :D
I got some B12/cobalt/selenium etc. drench - she had some of that the other day - and spat quite a bit out , ::)
We have to give the sheep here Coppavit too, as the land is deficient in copper.
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Someone asked if there was a supplement powder for horses. Many years ago I used one for my Exmoor who got very thin and who was a different animal after having this. I believe it was introduced by Spillers, but I don't know if they still make it. It gave my pony many more years of active life, and is well worth a try.
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Why struggle to drench a goat when you can feed the minerals ?????
The company I work with produce a wonderful equine mineral for feed inclusion called Think Pink.
It is available by mail order.
The company is Denis Brinicombe & their website is www.brinicombe.co.uk (http://www.brinicombe.co.uk). The best bit is the equine supplement is cheap !!!!! I now would not feed any other which is why I approached them to produce a well balanced goat mineral suitable for all goats.
If you contact them mention that Jane Ross gave you the website detail.
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Although I don't have goats, I have been interested in this conversation.
The following may or may not be relevant...
Up here the only real difference between 16% cattle and 16% sheep feed is the copper. I haven't asked the question but I imagine the same is true for 18% feeds. (I get a 20% parlour mix for Hillie; I don't think there is a 20% sheep feed - maybe Ram & Lamb Mix?)
Copper, although a necessary trace element for all species, is thought to be poisonous to sheep in large quantities. Some breeds, specifically Texels, are particularly sensitive to high levels of copper and there have been some cases of death from burst livers in Texels given copper.
In these parts, all the ground is highly deficient in copper and the farmers hereabouts have found that copper in feed and drenches doesn't harm Texels on this ground. We would all be careful not to be drenching Texels with a copper-containing drench and at the same time giving a feed containing added copper, though.
It seems that other breeds of sheep can take a lot more copper than Texels.
So firstly, do of course check the specific cattle feed you are using for your goats, but it may be that it would only really be harmful for Texel-type sheep and possibly not even then if your ground is highly copper-deficient.
I am also wondering whether an alternative to using cattle feed for your goats would be to use the equivalent (same protein %) sheep feed and, if the goats seem to need extra copper, to give them a chelated copper drench, or some other copper supplement, as appropriate?
You are right Sally- it does depend on your local area. The Perthshire hills are known for their lack of copper, and I know people who have really struggled with copper deficincy.
But yes- you can feed Sheep mix and just add the extra copper minerals. We feed sheep mix, some cattle dairy nuts, and add extra loose minerals.
Beth
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Oh, and to answer the original question- personally minerals and sheep/goat/cattle food debate is only a small part of it. To fatten up I would feed soaked sugar beet pulp, flaked barley (barley is better for adding weight than oats or wheat) and flaked peas.
Beth
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Thanks Beth - I'll see what I can get of those. I know she likes peas as she picks them out of any mix :D