I want to mix my own feed

[ThePigeonKid]

I want to mix my own feed for dairy goats. Does anybody have a good recipe to make about 100-300 pounds? Any help will be appreciated.

 

[ksalvagno]

Can't help you with the feed mix, I just buy the bagged goat feed.

 

[goodhors]

You might get a great recipe, then have it mixed at your local elevator. Our elevator recommends getting 400 pounds of any mix done. Lesser quantity adds on too much cost with the mixing fees, may not mix well because their mixer is pretty big.

I have done my own mixing before, and have to say it is kind of a PITA! Just handling the various bags, getting in the right proportions in tubs for mixing, doing it several times!, and then moving the mixed stuff into storage cans is tiring! We had this great "market lamb" grain recipe but it had to be made in 300 pound batches! "Special" ingredients only came bagged in 100 pound sack. That only lasted ONE summer. Got the elevator to mix it for me.

Call and ask what the mixing fee is for doing up a batch. Might surprise you by not being much. Time saved could be used elsewhere. We store our grains in metal garbage cans. The 30 gallon holds about 150 pounds of dry oats and cracked corn mix for the horses. Fluffy or light grains take up more space. Mice don't get into these cans, you can tie the lids on, easy to clean, don't take up much space. Plastic garbage cans can be chewed right thru by rodents, so they can self-serve for meals!

Anyway, an idea to save yourself some labor in handling big sacks of grain.

 

[freemotion]

I feed whole grains (barley and oats, and I may get some rye soon...wheat is not available here for a reasonable price) and sprout them for protein and increase nutrient availability. No mixing or grinding required, but there is some rinsing involved. Then I add chopped veggies/apples if available. If not, I add moistened beet pulp shreds and maybe some alfalfa pellets if the doe is milking heavily. They give more milk on the veggies, though. Pumpkins right now, and soon some root veggies, plus scraps from our dinner prep and garden.

 

[chandasue]

sprout them for protein and increase nutrient availability. No mixing or grinding required, but there is some rinsing involved.

I've been thinking about doing something similar to cut my costs but it seems like a lot more work. Stupid question: how do you sprout them? Just rinse and let them sit till they sprout? How long does it take and do you need to do it inside/warmer indoor temps to sprout? AND off-topic question: is this the same process as for making bread with sprouted grains?

Sorry to OP for hijacking your question...

 

[freemotion]

sprout them for protein and increase nutrient availability. No mixing or grinding required, but there is some rinsing involved.

I've been thinking about doing something similar to cut my costs but it seems like a lot more work. Stupid question: how do you sprout them? Just rinse and let them sit till they sprout? How long does it take and do you need to do it inside/warmer indoor temps to sprout? AND off-topic question: is this the same process as for making bread with sprouted grains?

Sorry to OP for hijacking your question...

Its not really a hijack...this is how I got away from soy. I started out using a colander in my kitchen sink, rinsing them twice a day until they sprouted. Once I had it all figured out and got tired of tripping over the bucket that lived by the back door, I drilled small holed in a few 2 gallon buckets and kept one bucket undrilled. I fill the bucket about 2/3 to 3/4 with a mix of oats and barley (I'd use wheat, too, if I could get it...might have a source of rye soon, so will add that if I can) and fill it up with water. If you have live-culture whey from mesophilic cheesemaking or from straining yogurt or kefir, add a glug of that in the initial soak for good probiotics that keep spoilage at bay longer, help neutralize germination inhibitors (phytates), and make the whole thing more digestible and make the nutrients more available.

Let it soak for a day or a day and a half, then pour into one of the buckets with holes, let it drain, and fill that bucket with fresh water, letting it drain to rinse the grains once. I do this with the bucket set on two thin boards over my sump in the basement. You can do it outside if the temps are not too cold. The cool basement is ideal, summer and winter.

Rinse them once or twice a day until they are all fed. The prefered stage for feeding is when the sprout is just emerging and is about 1/8 inch long or so. I don't obsess about it. I feed as early as after the first soak to as late as quite long grass and roots, up to an inch or more. At that point, spoilage is likely to occur with the bucket method. Smell them and feel them for slime, look at them for mold. I've found that I only ever get spoilage at that late stage, so I feed before it gets there.

Figure out how much you use and start the next bucket soaking before the last one is gone so you are feeding as close to the ideal stage as possible.

I feed sprouted grains to my poultry in the mornings, as much as they want, scattered on the ground until they are no longer diving for it. I feed them whole corn in the afternoon. They free-range the rest of the day. I have seriously reduced my feed bill this way, and production remained the same.

I feed my goats the sprouted grain, to those who need it. The buck gets half sprouted grain and half alfalfa pellets. The lactating and pregnant does get sprouted grain and veggies or beet pulp and maybe alfalfa pellets if no veggies are available. Kids get some if needed during weaning.

Hope this helps. It has saved me a ton and my critters are healthy on it. I learned about it from www.themodernhomestead.us and www.westonapricefoundation.org.

 

[Hykue]

I don't know how helpful I will be, but I recently did this myself. I learned a few things.

Firstly, it actually wasn't cheaper to mix my own than to buy prebagged. I would have just gotten the prebagged stuff, even though I didn't realize the cost savings, just for the time savings, but it's about a four-hour drive to the nearest feed store that carries anything for goats.

So I took my handy-dandy dairy goat book to the feed store with me. That's my next point - it's good to have a reference before you do this. Because someone else's recipe might contain ingredients you can't get, or that are very expensive in your area. The book that I used as a reference is Storey's Guide to Raising Dairy Goats. It's not perfect, but it did give me enough information to be semi-confident in mixing my own ration, even as a very new goat owner.

First, you need to estimate how much protein your goats are getting from other sources - alfalfa hay has about 11% digestible protein, grasses have less - from 7% for Bermuda grass, mixed grass, and timothy to 10% for brome.

Second, you need to estimate how much protein they need - I think usually 16% is considered an average need for a lactating doe. In my book (um, I mean my literal book), it's as low as 10% for a dry doe. For a lactating doe fed only grass hay, they recommend 21% digestible protein in the ration. For a lactating doe fed only alfalfa hay, they recommend 12.5% protein . . . at least in the sample rations they provide.

Third, I think, you should figure out what protein sources are available where you are and how much they cost. Call your local feed store, ask about soybeans or soybean oil meal (the meal is more expensive but safer in large quantities - the raw soybeans contain a substance that interferes with digestion if you feed too much of them). Ask about linseed meal. I decided that the raw soybeans were not a good idea personally, but apparently they can make up 20% of the ration without a problem. I'm a scaredy-cat about dietary stuff and mixing my own ration, so I went with field peas - but they have lower protein, so you need more of them. They only had field peas and soybeans. So, to sum up this paragraph - figure out what protein source: linseed meal, soybean oil meal, raw soybeans, or field peas.

Then comes what I consider to be the truly tricky part. You want to combine your protein source with other available, preferably affordable grains in such a manner as to: a) provide the desired % protein, b) maintain the proper calcium to phosphorus ratio, which is usually called 2:1, and c) ensure your goats will eat it. I'm not sure this last point is a problem, my goats balked at the new ration (mixed with their old stuff) for about 2 seconds before they started eating it, but they did take one or two feedings to figure out that chewing field peas sucked, and they should just be swallowed whole and chewed later.

My book also recommends a couple of other things - goats need bulk in their diet, and apparently even in their ration, so they recommend adding wheat bran to add bulk. It says "a concentrate ration should not weigh more than 1 pound per quart". Beet pulp can be used for this function for does, but it can lead to urinary calculi in bucks. Wheat bran is dusty, and goats don't like dusty, so they also recommend molasses. Molasses sticks the dry stuff together, and has other benefits, chief among them being the fact that goats think it's delicious, as far as I can tell. It contains iron, and increasing amounts in late pregnancy can help avoid ketosis. Also, you are supposed to add salt - I didn't do this, because I wasn't very clear on how much is needed at what stages, if it's in addition to their minerals, etc. I also didn't add the minerals into the mix, because I have one goat that eats the loose minerals like candy - I think she gets enough without me adding any. The other goat, I sprinkle a teaspoon on her food every day.

Oh my, I'm just realizing how very long this post is. I'm basically paraphrasing everything my book says. I won't try to recreate the table with grain protein, calcium, and phosphorus percentages . . . but if you ask, I might be able to provide those for a couple of ingredients available in your area.

I will include one of the sample rations in the book. It says this one is for a lactating doe on alfalfa hay.

Corn 31 lbs, Oats 25 lbs, Wheat bran 11 lbs, Linseed-oil meal 22 lbs, Cane molasses 10 lbs, Salt 1 lb. Apparently this gives you 12.6% digestible protein. They also seem to contradict their own advice from a couple of pages earlier, where they say that "Feeds with more than 5 to 6 percent molasses should be avoided."

Just for giggles, here's the horribly complicated ration I came up with:

Oats 25 lbs, Corn 12.5 lbs, Wheat 15 lbs, Field Peas 17.5 lbs, Barley 2.5 lbs, Sunflower seeds (in hull) 12.5 lbs, Wheat bran 12.5 lbs, Molasses 2.5 lbs. That gives me 12% digestible protein to go with their 50/50 alfalfa/brome hay for now, while they're both open and dry.

It took me nearly all day to come up with the recipe, try (unsuccessfully) to balance the Ca (but I don't know the ratio in their hay and browse, so really, I don't know what to do about it), and mix one garbage bin full. Then I had to find somewhere to store all my bags of grain. And the cheapest of the ingredients was the same price as a premixed ration. The most expensive ingredient (the field peas) was 2.5 times as much as the bagged ration. So, I'm not trying to discourage you, but trying to suggest that you check it out thoroughly before you decide to go this route. It's a bit of a PITA, and it's not necessarily cheaper. It was fun, and my goats think it tastes just fine, but they're not really picky anyway. I hope that nestled in this excessively long post you can find some nuggets of real information. And don't be afraid to ask if you want percentages - I'll try to limit the length of my reply!

 

[chandasue]

Thanks Free! That is not nearly as troublesome as I thought. I just started reading up on the Weston Price stuff recently so I'll look into that further too. I hadn't even thought about my poor chickens, I'm sure in the winter especially they'd really eat that up. I think I'll do a little experimenting with once I start to run out of what I have stocked up.

 

[freemotion]

Thanks Free! That is not nearly as troublesome as I thought. I just started reading up on the Weston Price stuff recently so I'll look into that further too. I hadn't even thought about my poor chickens, I'm sure in the winter especially they'd really eat that up. I think I'll do a little experimenting with once I start to run out of what I have stocked up.

Keep in mind that chickens need about three weeks to develop crop strength to handle whole grains if they are eating mash, pellets, or ground grain. A little less if the get a generous amount of whole scratch grains daily. So plan ahead and switch them over gradually.

I've found that baby chicks will start eating whole sprouted small grains at 10 days, and can handle whole corn if it is not too big by three weeks.