Medicated Feed for babies question...

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

I've had all my baby goats on a cocci medicated pellet feed, they love it and eat a ton of it. However I just bred my 8 month olds who are still on it and I was wondering if I need to take them off it since they are now pregnant... Here's the feed.

 

[20kidsonhill]

we do not take ours off of the medicated feed, But if it is deccox and not rumensin(monensin) the cocci can build up a resistance to the deccox. Something to consider when using medicated feeds and which one you are using.
I see your feed has Monensin in it and all I can tell you is that is what we use and we do not take ours off of it, infact toxoplasmosis from cats can be slowed down by feeding a Monensin medicated feed during gestation.

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Ok good to know, thank you 20Kids! I will KEEP them on it!

 

[alsea1]

Hmm. I may pick some up.

 

[Southern by choice]

we do not take ours off of the medicated feed, But if it is deccox and not rumensin(monensin) the cocci can build up a resistance to the deccox. Something to consider when using medicated feeds and which one you are using.
I see your feed has Monensin in it and all I can tell you is that is what we use and we do not take ours off of it, infact toxoplasmosis from cats can be slowed down by feeding a Monensin medicated feed during gestation.

Do you keep your adults on it too?
I don't know anything about medicated feed.
Considering it for this year but am nervous about it. Never used it and am not sure of the protocol.
If the adults get to it what about their milk?

 

[alsea1]

All good questions southern. I think I would go directly to the makers of the product and check with them. They should be able to give you the correct info.
I was told that the medicated feed for goats is safe to use milk from and eat meat from. But I got this info from the feed dealer I go to. So it is possible that its not correct.

 

[20kidsonhill]

there is no withdrawal for selling the goats for meat, we don't milk. We do feed it to our adults, But most our adults after age 2 are only fed grain when they are either being flushed for breeding or 1 month before they kid and while they are nursing for about 8 to 10 weeks, So they would be on grain for about 3 months of the year, our bucks get some grain in the winter as well, partly due to colder weather and partly due to putting weight back on them after breeding season. Monensin/rumensin is toxic to horses and toxic if not mixed in the feed evenly. But to do any good you do need to feed a certain amount per animal per day. Don't really know what that is per body weight, I know my adults are suppose to get at least a lb of medicated feed a day, my kids all are on free choice grain so they get plenty. I still need to treat for cocci in addition to this. We have coccidiosis terrible in our area, Just the right conditions for it.

 

[Southern by choice]

Great info! Thanks.
We saw 6 oocysts and 10 oocysts in our fecals last year and did a preventative (1 dose) of the Toltrazuril. A new goat kid came in with 34 oocyst... we did the same and re-treated 1 dose 10 days later.
We only fed 1 cup of feed per day so probably not any help there. The kids may be worth feeding it though. They get 1/4-1/2 cup a day... but they are little ND's.
The Kiko meat goats seem ok as long as they are moved through the land. 2 bucklings that were seperated at wean and in wet marshy conditions never got coccidiosis but they did get treated with the Toltrazuril too.

With the rains and wet last year and who knows what this year will hold I am trying to be a little cautious.... we already have mud and have had a great deal of erosion... causing us to have to really make some changes while we fix the problem. Grrr

 

[Sweetened]

Personally, I don't do medicated feed, and with chickens I sure haven't found it to be helpful when I accidentally started a hatch on medicated and continued them on it. To me, it's a lot like giving birth to a perfectly healthy child and putting them on penicillin, just in case. With our goats, since taking them off pelleted feed, they have better body condition and I don't find them with scours -- the only goat feed we can get here is medicated, but at the time we didn't have hay and they had been pellet fed by their previous owners anyway. They were VORACIOUS for pelleted feed.

I fear medicated feeds understanding bacterial life cycles. Some bacteria can birth 10 generations or more in a few days, and it's hard to think about that. Anything surviving the feed is multiplying and building immunity to the synthetic medication at an incredibly rapid rate. Within a year or two you could have total immunity. It is my understanding that the mectins in our area are rarely helpful, as the bugs and parasites have built up an immunity much like, when I had salmonella poisioning before I ever got into farming, they took me off all the antibiotics because it was "pointless", I had a 99.9% resistant strain.

I've had great luck with treating the gut, keeping good flora levels in balance. It's preventative and doesn't create or stimulate mutations in bacteria, viral and parasitic invaders.

This works for me, and I understand why people would feed medicated and don't wrong them for it. I would, personally, worry that feeding them medicated feed while pregnant would create immunity or resistance issue in the future. However, I think people have been doing it so long, that others who do feed this way would be able to tell you the other side. I hope this helps without stepping on toes =/ not my intention.

 

[20kidsonhill]

All opinions are welcome, We had problems with a store bought bagged feed and we switched to our own ration and took out distillers grains our problems let up. I can't explain this very well, but Monensin/rumensin is set up to let a certain amount of cocci live(it is called something) it is not like other bacteria or antibiotics and cocci does not build up a resistance to rumensin. Cocci does build up a resistance to deccox and deccox feed will become ineffective if used non-stop. But clearly with all that said our country has over used antibiotics and medications in many areas of animal husbandry.