The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: shygirl on September 08, 2013, 08:23:59 pm
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one of our nannies really lost weight last year and although she has put some on over the summer, she is still under weight. worming is upto date, and always has been (including fluke) so im confident she hasnt had worms. her teeth are fine. she is a lightweight 3 yr old.
what is the best diet to fatten her up? i may not breed from her this year, i just want condition on her.
she is still with a kid but i dont think she is feeding too much now.
they are on ab-lib haylage and ab-lib calf rearer pellets at the moment, plus grazing. she is not greedy or prone to bloat.
she will get a molasses vitamin lick shortly.
any suggestions to fatten her up please?
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I had this with Rowan, she was horribly skinny having reared her first set of twins.
I didn't breed her last year and have just made sure she got extra helpings of my general goat feed and the molassed sheep flakey mix. I also gave her a scoop of flaked maize a couple of times a day.
I drench them with a cobalt/selenium mix and also use Caprivite on their feed.
It's worked, she's in good condition again now.
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Hiya have you tried feeding a goat concentrate? I feed all mine a Haygate goat feed but you can get others that are specifically for dairy breeds etc. ask at your local feed merchant what they stick and try her with that as well as hay/grazing. I also had an older goat that was aneamic and the vet suggested an iron supplement which perked her up, he had to tell me a horse one as nothing for goats as usual! He reckoned goats are close to aneamia normally, to check pull down her bottom eye lid and see if it is pale pink ( if pale pink all is ok) however if white she could be aneamic. Hope that helps!
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That's a point, my goats get cow dairy nuts when they're pregnant and milking.
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I would give her a multi-vit/mineral drench (a sheep one, but make sure it contains copper), at the same dose rate as for sheep (if you only have a couple of goats it may be cheaper to ask the vet for an injectable one) and also give her a course of Combivit injections to perk her appetite up. However if she kidded this spring she may just take a long time got back into good condition.
If she is milking she definitely would do better on a dairy cow ration, and she should also have a Red Rockie to make sure she gets enough copper.
What breed is she? She may still be growing a bit too....
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The concentrate I use is Allen and Page Dairy Goat - not the cheapest but it works well on my goats. My milker also gets dairy nuts and they both have sugar beet (soaked pellets) and Caprivite twice a day and garlic and seaweed added at night.
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Better to use Brinicombes Goat Feed Balancer.....................it contains much higher levels of essential minerals & vitamins than Caprivite.
Goats actually require as much copper as a dairy cow............they get treated like sheep because of size but that is the only resemblance. A goats metabolic rate is practically 3 times faster than a cow !!!!
Goat feed generally only contains sheep minerals as manufacturers play safe because most goatkeeper/smallholders have sheep. You are far better to feed cattle Dairy compounds as these are designed for lactating animals..............and are much cheaper because of the volume produced.
I have made a particular study of this issue of feeding................1. to keep down costs, & 2. the ensure our goats get the best available feedstuffs to suit their job. Feed manufacturers are in business to make money, so repackaging with tweaks to the feed and hey presto, you can charge more. OK so I am cynical but in a large number of cases this is true. Because goats are in the minority for the feed industry, it is not cost effective to stop the mills producing huge volumes to do a very small run of goat feed....................think about it.
Allen & Page produce specific goat mixes..............which appear to almost identical to their Calf mix, which is cheaper.
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Yep Miss Mostyn Owen when asked her secret to producing good milking goats gave her feed regime and then added "cattle minerals and above all copper (Does them a world of good) "
I also have started giving "Red Cell" if I notice a problem (Learnt that from the USA where they still require a goat to do a job ;) )
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What's "Red Cell"?
I have found Caprivite to be an excellent additive - the only problem I have is some of my girls object to anything added to their mix and I now prefer to use a liquid sheep drench with added copper. Mine also get some garlic granules and seaweed granules, but again some have become "allergic" :-J to it...
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What's "Red Cell"?
thanks everyone.
we used to give red cell to the horses,20 years ago, when they were competing hard. if i remember right - its a iron/vitamin rich liquid food supplement designed to enrich the blood. where would you buy it ?
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Red cell is a horse product you are right :) Any good horse/agricultural place will sell it.
Google Red Cell for goats and it will lead you to various forums that will tell you when why and what dose (I first heard about it on Goatwisdom http://goatwisdom.proboards.com/ (http://goatwisdom.proboards.com/) which also has a Facebook page)
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does anyone use chaff or chop in the feeds?
and do you mix the wet sugarbeet in with the dairy nuts? - mine tend to prefer dry food, and once the nuts get mushy they waste it. so we have mixed dry sugarbeet in the feeds during winter. is this ok?
does anyone else feed adlib hard feed? mine arent greedy at all.
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We used to use chaff years ago, but it became hard to get hold of here. We used to feed it separately, as an extra feed, and we do this with soaked beet pulp too- don't mix it.
Beth
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Mine are OK with mixing the damp (but not dripping wet) and still warm shreds into the oats and mix, and until recently also with the dairy nuts. For some unfathomable reason ALL my ladies have decided that dairy nuts are a no-no, and I have for the time given up on them - so it's expensive goat mix all round...eeeek. Will try them on ewe&lamb next, it has to be cheaper than A&P... (they sort of like the 18% calf mix the kids are on, but not much of it... or we have bowls flying through the shed!)
It's never boring with goats, that's for sure!
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And just to be different, mine likes their food to be sloppy. I use sugar beet pellets and soak them for a few hours in plenty of water them add the dairy goat mix and supplements.
I'm with Anke in liking Caprivite. Mine were on Briniscombe's last year then this year I swapped to Caprivite and her milk yield went up.
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Ours are like that with dairy nuts too. They never seem to continuely eat dairy nuts no matter how much we preserve. That's why our basic mix is a ewe mix and the dairy nuts are as well as that. With goat mix for the milkers too.
Beth
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Does rather give the lie to the generally held belief that goats eat anything.
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at the minute they have a big bucket or calf rearer nuts (they dont manage the bigger rolls very well) and a separate big bucket of apple chaff with soaked sugarbeet. and adlib haylage. i have oil to add to the feed when i decide which bucket ::) theres a red rockies salt lick.
caprivite will be ordered next week (from ascotts?) and apart from a high energy molasses (sheep or cattle?) lick i cant see what else i can do.
they get out for a few hours per day to graze and get fruit / veggie scraps. plenty of bananas atm ...lol
i looked at the cow vitamin drenches in the farm shop but it was out-of-date by a year :innocent:, £30 for a small new bottle but i will have to order it in.
she is costing more than my cows to feed at this rate but she is a little love.
wish i was this skinny :innocent: actually out of 6 goats only one is skinny. have i missed anything?
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The best place to get Caprivite is from http://gnltd.co.uk/ (http://gnltd.co.uk/).
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thanks, thats alot cheaper.
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I get a local equine supplier to order mine, so i didn't have to pay delivery. google 'caprivite' and then 'Battles' as a supplier website, they have a list of local suppliers, pick someone near and see if they will order it in. I tried Brinicombes but 1 goat in particular wouldn't eat up, and as I increased the daily amount the others started to play with their food, so went back to Caprivite.