Straw Hat Kikos
The Kiko Cowboy
How in the world did I miss that? lol
Is that stuff expensive?
Is that stuff expensive?
Southern States brand goat feed
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want less
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We have a neighbor that grows it, we get it for $7/bale. We've been feeding it to our horses for years. Awesome stuff. In ruminants studies have been showing that it acts as a natural dewormer too.Straw Hat Kikos said:
want less said:
How much does a bale weigh? I bought two 40 lb bales of alfalfa (which is nutritionally better than lespedeza) for $5 each.
aggieterpkatie
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I disagree. Sweet feed is just a different texture, with a small amount of molasses mixed in. It can be the exact same nutritional quality as a pelleted feed.Straw Hat Kikos said:
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They probably weigh 40-50 lbs. We cant get alfalfa in this area without getting it trucked in so it is expensive. Lespedeza is a great alternative and it is local.SheepGirl said:want less said:
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We've been using textured sweet feed for our goats and have had no problem on it. But everyone has their own opinion on pellets vs sweet feed... in the goat world and in the horse world. That's why I was asking in general for SS brand goat feed. However the tag I have pictured is for pelleted, that's just what they happened to have on hand at the store (I didnt buy any, they just gave me a tag)aggieterpkatie said:
I use SS brand feeds for our horses.
20kidsonhill
True BYH Addict
I think SS brands are okay feeds, I haven't used them but know it is sold in our area and hear of people using it.want less said:
Mamaboid
Loving the herd life
X2 We use a special goat sweet feed that our mill guy makes up for us. My goats will NOT eat pellets of any kinds. They just push their noses around in it and shove it out of the dish. We tried the sweet feed out of sheer frustration with trying to find something they would eat.aggieterpkatie said:
20kidsonhill
True BYH Addict
We just bought a new buckling, 12 weeks old, and he was on a sweet feed. Umburg brand. the seller carried on about it for her show goats. She does have nice looking goats. I was really worried about getting him to eat our pellets and got almost a full bag from her so I could have a lot of time to slowlyl transition him over. Now our feed is a mix that we designed and it has a fair amount of alfalfa in it and smells wonderful, way better than the bagged co-op feed that I was buying. It was 3 days and he was digging through his feed picking out and eating only our pellets. LOL. No problems getting him to transition over.
I had a buck I purchased 3 or 4 years ago that I had a heck of a time getting him to switch, since he wasn't ona pelleted feed and he refused to eat the bagged pelleted feed fromt he co-op. It was months before I got him to eat any grain.
That was really not that important to the discussion. LOL.
I am okay with the non-pelleted feeds, it is all the same ingredients just not pelletized. Some people feel the grinding and smashing of the feed degrades it and they don't want everythign all smashed up, so then a sweet feed typ texture would be the way to go so you can incorporate more whole grains in it. I am not sure I am on that band wagon and I am okay with a pelletized feed.
We had problems with our show wethers that were on high amounts of grain, just pickign through the sweet feeds and eating the whole grains and levign the protein pellet part of the feed behind. Even a sweet feed often has a pelelt in it, that woudl be the part that contains the protein. Often soybean and then the vitamines and mineral packs. In our case for wethers the protein pellet in the sweet feed mix would also contain the ammonia chloride and that makes the pellet not tasete as good in the sweet feed mixture. So they woudl eat the oats and corn and everything around it and leave the protein pellets behind. Kind of hard to grow nice wethers that way.
So we ony do pelleted feeds.
One of our local co-ops show feed for wethers is sweet feed, I know they sell a quite a bit of it, but I didn't care for it and so we would only buy a pelleted show feed.
sorry that was kind of wordy, but does pertain to feeding wethers. LOL>
I had a buck I purchased 3 or 4 years ago that I had a heck of a time getting him to switch, since he wasn't ona pelleted feed and he refused to eat the bagged pelleted feed fromt he co-op. It was months before I got him to eat any grain.
That was really not that important to the discussion. LOL.
I am okay with the non-pelleted feeds, it is all the same ingredients just not pelletized. Some people feel the grinding and smashing of the feed degrades it and they don't want everythign all smashed up, so then a sweet feed typ texture would be the way to go so you can incorporate more whole grains in it. I am not sure I am on that band wagon and I am okay with a pelletized feed.
We had problems with our show wethers that were on high amounts of grain, just pickign through the sweet feeds and eating the whole grains and levign the protein pellet part of the feed behind. Even a sweet feed often has a pelelt in it, that woudl be the part that contains the protein. Often soybean and then the vitamines and mineral packs. In our case for wethers the protein pellet in the sweet feed mix would also contain the ammonia chloride and that makes the pellet not tasete as good in the sweet feed mixture. So they woudl eat the oats and corn and everything around it and leave the protein pellets behind. Kind of hard to grow nice wethers that way.
So we ony do pelleted feeds.
One of our local co-ops show feed for wethers is sweet feed, I know they sell a quite a bit of it, but I didn't care for it and so we would only buy a pelleted show feed.
sorry that was kind of wordy, but does pertain to feeding wethers. LOL>
aggieterpkatie
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I'm not against either kind of feed. I feed a sweet dairy goat feed, because I like it (and the goats like it) and that's what my feed place carries. My sheep feed is textured, but doesn't have molasses (or very minimal molasses). The sheep love it. I used to feed pelleted and they liked that too. My animals will eat anything, they're not picky at all. 
