[jaykay]

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?

[wytsend]

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.

[Roxy]

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? 

[wytsend]

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.

[ellisr]

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.

[jaykay]

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

[Anke]

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.

[jaykay]

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.

[Lesley Silvester]

I find suger beet helps.  I soak a small quantity (half a tuna tinful) in hot water and mix it to the coarse mix.

[wytsend]

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.

[plumseverywhere]

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

[wytsend]

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.

[Roxy]

When I was a girl (some decades ago  ) 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!

[plumseverywhere]

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!

[colliewoman]

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....