The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: poppy2012 on September 12, 2012, 08:32:19 pm
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:goat: some goatling advice....... i have a Girl kid 6 months old, not succling any mmore, whats the best kind of feed, we have alocal farmers merchand, have been told that calf mix would do, is this ture?? if so is there anything else you can advice
thank you
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Mine get molassed sheep coarse mix at this age. And some goat minerals and hay.
They start getting equal amounts of dairy nuts too when I mate them, and thereafter when they're pregnant, feeding and milking.
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are dairy nuts concentrates or is that just for the milkers, stupid wuestion i know!
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Dairy nuts are concentrates but I only feed them to my adult goats, from the time they go to the billy right through pregnancy, birth, feeding their kids and then me milking them, as during all this time I think they need the extra nutrition.
Sheep coarse mix is also concentrates, as it says designed for sheep, but young goats do well on it in my opinion, as long as they have access to either a specific goat mineral or a red Rockie, so that they get the additional copper that goats need but sheep mustn't have.
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would the smallholder block lick besufficient for this??
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No, I'd say not because it contains no copper. If you're going to feed sheep food (and that's fine to do) then they're going to be short of copper so the mineral needs to supply that. Sheep can be poisoned by too much copper but goats need it, which is the difference.
The Rockie salt licks, if you get the right one, provide copper - you need the red one not the yellow one. They don't taste great so goats don't take too much, you can give them unlimited access to it. Or I also use Brinicombes goat mineral which mine took a while to get used to but will now eat neat.
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No, I'd say not because it contains no copper. If you're going to feed sheep food (and that's fine to do) then they're going to be short of copper so the mineral needs to supply that. Sheep can be poisoned by too much copper but goats need it, which is the difference.
The Rockie salt licks, if you get the right one, provide copper - you need the red one not the yellow one. They don't taste great so goats don't take too much, you can give them unlimited access to it. Or I also use Brinicombes goat mineral which mine took a while to get used to but will now eat neat.
the sheep often come into the goat house, they share a field hence the smallholder block.....hmmmm
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Do you ever shut the goats in - ie over night? If so, used the powdered Brinicombes mineral and sprinkle it on their food.
Yes, you need to keep sheep away from the goat minerals. Anything sheep can have hasn't got the copper the goats need. Anything with the copper the goats need could poison the sheep.
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Mine are on a mixture of goat mix (Allan & Page, quite expensive), rolled oats and a wee handful of dairy nuts (Carrs Billingtons). The dairy nuts are not essential, but gets them used to them. Also usually give some soaked shreds to goatlings, especially in the winter. Good for adding minerals (I use Caprivite) to their feed.
also any fruit/veg that goes for anyone else, branches etc etc.
I have the yellow Rockie only in heir pens. I don't use (molassed) licks for the goats - not sure they would know when to stop licking...
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Mine have Allen and Page mix as well but I'm now saving a bit of money by using dairy nuts for my milker in the ratio 2:1, coarse mix:dairy nuts. They also have soaked sugar beet pellets (neeed less storage space than flakes) and share a bucket of Just Grass every day. Oh and veg and fruit when it's available.