My ND doe,Spot, gave birth to triplets 1/17. She's also allowing her now 10-month-old doeling from last year to nurse a little. She smells horrifying.
During her pregnancy, I was feeding her alfalfa hay free choice, baking soda and minerals free choice, supplemental alfalfa pellets, and 1/2 c. per day Noble Goat top dressed with kelp and probiotic powder. She got incredibly stinky and I contacted her breeder, who told me she was on the brink of enterotoxemia due to protein overload and to immediately cut out everything but the alfalfa. I did so and the smell cleared up pronto.
After Spot gave birth, I gave her grain again, and the smell was back immediately. I switched to an organic dairy feed grain mix, and cut her down to 2 tablespoons per day. Still smelly. We ran out of hay for a few days so she was just getting the alfalfa pellets, plus browse that I foraged (fresh and fallen leaves, rose hedge trimmings, weeds) and that changed the smell a bit but didn't reduce it at all--if anything, it increased it a bit. That was about the lowest protein diet (short of cutting out all grain) that is going to be manageable for this area at this time of year--in the summer there will start to be bermuda hay available, but til then the alfalfa is all we can get.
She is wide in the rumen but not carrying any fat, so I'm really too nervous to take her off grain completely when she's producing so much milk for her kids.
The past two days, I tried going the opposite way and increasing her grain to 1/4 cup, and that's cut the overall smell but her belches and occasional flatulence are still really stinky. Is it possible that she gets smelly both from too much protein and from too little? Should I increase her grain ration again?
Has anybody else ever had this problem?
During her pregnancy, I was feeding her alfalfa hay free choice, baking soda and minerals free choice, supplemental alfalfa pellets, and 1/2 c. per day Noble Goat top dressed with kelp and probiotic powder. She got incredibly stinky and I contacted her breeder, who told me she was on the brink of enterotoxemia due to protein overload and to immediately cut out everything but the alfalfa. I did so and the smell cleared up pronto.
After Spot gave birth, I gave her grain again, and the smell was back immediately. I switched to an organic dairy feed grain mix, and cut her down to 2 tablespoons per day. Still smelly. We ran out of hay for a few days so she was just getting the alfalfa pellets, plus browse that I foraged (fresh and fallen leaves, rose hedge trimmings, weeds) and that changed the smell a bit but didn't reduce it at all--if anything, it increased it a bit. That was about the lowest protein diet (short of cutting out all grain) that is going to be manageable for this area at this time of year--in the summer there will start to be bermuda hay available, but til then the alfalfa is all we can get.
She is wide in the rumen but not carrying any fat, so I'm really too nervous to take her off grain completely when she's producing so much milk for her kids.
The past two days, I tried going the opposite way and increasing her grain to 1/4 cup, and that's cut the overall smell but her belches and occasional flatulence are still really stinky. Is it possible that she gets smelly both from too much protein and from too little? Should I increase her grain ration again?
Has anybody else ever had this problem?
