Goat Feed besides Purina Goat Chow

[jodief100]

Protein content in corn raised today is much higher than in the past.

The person who suggested it to me was Dr. Frank Pinkerton, retired from Langston University. Maybe he is wrong but with 50+ years experience raising goats and a PhD in animal sciences I assumed he knew what he was talking about.

 

[Chirpy]

Most goat people here use Klassy Goat feed. I don't know if that's available where you are ...or what the price would be there. Since Nigi's tend to put on weight extra fast I'd keep their feed at a minimum at this point. They don't actually need any extra feed right now - just a good quality hay or pasture/weeds.

About a month or so before they are due to kid you will want to start to slowly up their feed intake. If you haven't been giving them feed at all that's when you want to start to. (I don't give my Nigi's feed through the year because they so easily put on weight. It's a special treat once in a while for them until kidding season.) Once they have kidded then you should be at the max amount for them. If you do milk them you may also want to add BOSS (black oiled sunflower seeds) into their feed.

Goats do not do well with solid mineral blocks... always use loose minerals if at all possible. Leave them out in a dry place for 24/7 use. You should also have baking soda available 24/7 if you don't already. I mix DE in with the baking soda and sprinkle it on their bodies every couple of weeks. I do believe it helps with 'bugs'. Make sure you use FOOD GRADE only DE. It has to say it's food grade on the bag or it's not. The other can kill them.

 

[ABHanna4d]

Most goat people here use Klassy Goat feed. I don't know if that's available where you are ...or what the price would be there. Since Nigi's tend to put on weight extra fast I'd keep their feed at a minimum at this point. They don't actually need any extra feed right now - just a good quality hay or pasture/weeds.

About a month or so before they are due to kid you will want to start to slowly up their feed intake. If you haven't been giving them feed at all that's when you want to start to. (I don't give my Nigi's feed through the year because they so easily put on weight. It's a special treat once in a while for them until kidding season.) Once they have kidded then you should be at the max amount for them. If you do milk them you may also want to add BOSS (black oiled sunflower seeds) into their feed.

Goats do not do well with solid mineral blocks... always use loose minerals if at all possible. Leave them out in a dry place for 24/7 use. You should also have baking soda available 24/7 if you don't already. I mix DE in with the baking soda and sprinkle it on their bodies every couple of weeks. I do believe it helps with 'bugs'. Make sure you use FOOD GRADE only DE. It has to say it's food grade on the bag or it's not. The other can kill them.

Thank you! Especially for the tip about food grade DE...I was just going to pick some up tomorrow and will be sure to check for food grade!!!

 

[cmjust0]

A lot of people put DE in feed as a dewormer, but DE only works against bugs by puncturing their exoskeletons and absorbing their body fluids.. It doesn't work in wet environments, nor against non-exoskeletal bugs.

The GI tract is wet, and intestinal worms don't have exoskeletons.

There are also numerous studies which have shown that DE is not an effective dewormer.

I know it's not the cheapest stuff ever, nor the easiest to find, and I always kinda cringe a bit when I hear of people going to the trouble and expense of buying it, only to put it in the animal's feed and have them poop it right out with no benefit at all.

Just sayin'.

 

[churchx3]

I have read Fiasco Farm alot and she feeds her animals a 16% Mare and Foal food as she said it is normally better quality then goat food??? Thoughts / Comments please??

 

[cmjust0]

We feed a mare and foal blend to some of our lactating goats, simply because I've yet to find a good dairy goat blend anywhere I can actually get ahold of it.. The Ca ratio isn't correct on ours, but it's close, and everything else (short of too much vitamin A) is more or less OK.

I don't like feeding it....I just don't have much other choice, since pretty much every other on-label goat feed I've found around here is medicated..

I don't wanna drink deccox.

Thinking of mixing in some alfalfa pellets to dilute the vitamin/mineral pack in the mare & foal, as well as add some calcium back to it to try to bring the ratio back in line..

 

[goatlady81]

Ummm....'bout this much *holds up feed scoop* top dressed on a freezer full of feed.

From what I understand, it's 'safe' as a feed additive...If you get the feed grade....I've never read how much is 'needed' so I just sprinkle some as I add layers of feed to the freezer (50# bag of sweet feed, 1/3 of a bag of goat concentrate, 2 scoops of BOSS, then sprinkle in some DE, probiotic powder, and mineral, stir, and do it again and again, layer by layer, until the freezer is full.

My husband hasn't got the patience to wait for me to 'blend' their feed, he helps me haul it into the barn and then wanders off and does other things until I'm done "playing in it", as he calls it.

When I'm done, there's a light gray coating on the feed, just enough to let me know it's there, but not enough that if I wiggle the scoop there's some left in the bottom.
Same w/ the dog feed.
Since the chicken feed I buy is a 'mash' it's a bit hard to see it, but I follow the same principle...bag of layer, 1/4 bag of scratch, BOSS, cracked corn, then DE, then start another layer.

So when your making the feed mixture do you put them in containers? What do you use to hold the feed mixture in?

 

[PattySh]

I am feeding Poulin Challenger Horse Feed. My goats look great. Goat grain here is limited and generally medicated.

 

[cmjust0]

We actually have one doe that's doing this same thing to us right now.. She's just kinda like...meh...when it comes to her grain, despite the fact that she's nursing triplets and should be hitting peak lactation right about NOW. We're lucky to get 2lbs of grain in her a day, despite the fact that she's offered the opportunity to eat probably 4lbs.. We've tried a few different types, actually, but she just doesn't really want it. I wouldn't doubt she's making 10lbs of milk a day right now, though..

She looks like hell, in my opinion -- about a BCS 2.5 at the most, I'd say -- and her kids' combined weight is well upward of 80lbs right now...no doubt in my mind about that. She's nursing a buckling who has to be close to 40# by himself, and he's got a big-framed sister who's packing it on quickly, too.. Then there's the other sister who's growing more or less normally, yet who looks a little runty beside her sibs.. She's probably in the mid 20's at 2mo, after having been born at 5.5lbs and having to fight two hosscat sibs for a teat..

Anyway, here's the thing...if you'd told me ahead of time that she was going to be picky about grain after kidding triplets with pretty outstanding growth rates, I'd have said...."Well then, she's probably gonna waste away and die."

And for a while there, that's exactly what I thought was going to happen.

Yet...despite everything I've been taught to believe would happen, she's not really continuing to decline. She's more or less leveled off at about a BCS2.5, seems pretty happy, healthy, and quite feisty, and is raising three nice babies.

Ultimately, I figure she probably knows what she needs and if she starts really "feeling it"...she'll eat.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

A lot of people put DE in feed as a dewormer, but DE only works against bugs by puncturing their exoskeletons and absorbing their body fluids.. It doesn't work in wet environments, nor against non-exoskeletal bugs.

The GI tract is wet, and intestinal worms don't have exoskeletons.

There are also numerous studies which have shown that DE is not an effective dewormer.

I know it's not the cheapest stuff ever, nor the easiest to find, and I always kinda cringe a bit when I hear of people going to the trouble and expense of buying it, only to put it in the animal's feed and have them poop it right out with no benefit at all.

Just sayin'.

My coworker has an organic veggie farm, so she tries to keep all her animals organic if possible. She feeds DE to all her animals, and she recently did a little experiment to see if wet DE would kill bugs. She put DE in a jar with some water to make it soupy, then she put in some maggots. They died. It worked. Just sayin.