Southern by choice
Herd Master
Grey beard you nailed it- the advertising and use... ughFor what it's worth the same holds true for calves on calf manna as well.
One of he problems comes from Calf Manna's advertising........
The Solution:
Calf-Manna is an ideal first feed for kids as it provides high quality proteins, including whey, which are necessary for sound growth and development
https://www.mannapro.com/products/goat/goats
The instructions are rather vague:
Goats 1/4 to 1/2 lb per day
https://www.jefferspet.com/media/W1siZiIsIjIwMTQvMDkvMDgvMTMvMzkvMDAvODM3LzAwMjgzMjQucGRmIl1d
But, it doesn't mention what AGE goats. By it's nature, it makes the animal eat more and more isn't always better for animals still on milk or just weaned.
One size (or instructions does not fit all.
It's good stuff and I've used it for years with good results but you have to be careful because of the high energy content and carbs.
Dairy Calves Up to 1 lb per day
Beef Calves 10% of the creep feed
Just way too many variables to use fixed ratios...with any livestock.
The issue is goats. Goats are not cattle and far too many livestock vets are not savvy with goats, they may be great with cattle but far from being great with goats. The company itself is good however they are about selling their product as you pointed out. All my large animal vets that are primarily cattle vets pretty much do most things as if though goats were cattle.
Some things add to the difficulty of a new goat owner-
The poster has little info on these goats.
No one knows if they are CAE neg or any other disease status
No one knows their birthweight
No one knows if they had any colostrum from their dam
What is known-
They have had coccidia, parasites, "abscesses" and are very small for their age (although they look rather good) and now were diagnosed with entero... which IMO is still questionable as no anti biotics were prescribed and no anti toxin given - so there is that. Basically the kids had a sour stomach. They had no markedly high fever etc. If they had entero they'd be dead without extreme intervention. Period.
Keeping it simple is the best thing she can do.
High protein, switching feeds, sudden changes or increase all add up to big oopsies. Eating more just sets wethered goats up for more issues. Non wethered goats too.
Goats get thrown off metabolically quite easily. Over graining on non market animals is a huge no no. The limited research done on goats in the states are for meat goats- think market animals. Dairy goats are really quite different and if all of us dairy goat people did all the things the researchers say we would have lots and lots of dead dairy goats. Two different animals with two different functions.
Yep they are both goats but very different animals.
Cheap goats generally = large vet bills.