The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: cuckoo on November 21, 2014, 01:49:52 pm
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Protein / Feed Buckets - Do you feed these and if so what do you feed?
Thanks
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I tend to stick with the red Rockies but do give a mineral molasses bucket after kidding as a treat. They love the Rockies. I also give Brinicombe goat balancer once a day in feed.
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I used the sheep general minerals bucket last winter when they were in with the ewes pre-lambing/kidding, which they liked, changed to the cattle one when I split them because they're supposed to need the extra copper and still got most of it left. They just didn't like it.
They do have rockies and caprivite as well.
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Nope - I wouldn't trust my girls to know when to stop licking the sweeties... :o
Mine have red rockies, and if I think one of them needs it a mineral (sheep) drench with added copper. But at the moment none of them will eat Caprivite, or garlic or seaweed... so nothing else other than shreds, calf mix/dairy nuts and rolled oats. Plus carrots, apples and bananas, some cabbage/kale leaves. All are doing well.
Now that I have only Shetlands I have stopped using the buckets on the sheep too, found that the Shetlands ended up with mucky bums... prefer to give concentrates/shreds if needed. But I have a small enough flock and can feed twice a day and make sure that shy eaters get their share too... so probably different from "mainstream" sheepkeepers.
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we use a smallholder block now and again, usually pre-kidding as a bit of a booster. They LOVE it but its like a bucket of treacle toffee so they all end up with sticky brown noses ::)