Wethers & Pellets/grain

[ksalvagno]

It is very interesting to me that on the forum most people don't like the goat sweet feed. In my area, I have talked to many dairy goat owners and everyone around me loves the sweet feed type goat feed. They like to see the grains and feel it is better for them. Several get a special mix for their milking goats. Right now I"m using Purina Goat Chow since that is what my girls were originally on. I have been going to the local feed stores around me and gathering tags from the goat feeds to see what I want to finally use. Can't say that anything is standing out when I'm comparing labels, pellet or sweet feed. My problem with the Purina Goat Chow is that I have to travel about 40 minutes to get it when I have 4 local feed stores within 15 minutes of me.

 

[cmjust0]

Kent Feeds makes quite a few different goat products...everything from maintenance feed to really $pendy show feeds. I know they make two different 16%'s, each with 2:1, Ca ratio feed with Ammonium Chloride added. The reason there are two is because they come in a Rumensin version and a Deccox version.

Kent also has a goat mineral I've been looking at closely of late.. It's formulated 2:1, Ca with 1000ppm Copper as Copper sulfate -- not copper oxide. Contains ferrous sulfate and zinc sulfate, also, which means there's some good bioavailability there. Clearly, whoever put this mineral together did so for the sake of quality, not necessarily just so they could put the words "Copper," "Iron," "Zinc," and so forth on the label with no regard to putting those things in the goat.

I like that.

Anyway. I wouldn't doubt that at least one of those four feed stores nearby already get a Kent truck periodically, so you might call around and see if they can order what you need..

I'm thinking about switching to Kent products myself, frankly. They seem to be putting more research time and money into goats than any other feed producer I've run across.

 

[norcal]

It is very interesting to me that on the forum most people don't like the goat sweet feed.

When I was growing up, and milking the neighbors goats, that's what they fed them - sweet molasses corn grain (whatever it was called).

 

[trestlecreek]

Can you get Noble Goat or Purina Show Goat? Both are pelleted(and have alfalfa hay in the pellet) and are excellent feeds.

 

[lupinfarm]

I wish so bad I could get Purina Goat, or the Show goat... I want a pelleted feed so badly, I ordered a bag of something called Goat Maximizer to try it out, and I'm told its a pellet... We will see. I hate feeding sweet feed EVER. Not because its not particularly great for them, but because the wasps are addicted to it in the summer, its sticky, gross, and you have to feed twice as much because it has no real nutritional content. It also makes my mare hot as hell.

 

[cmjust0]

I don't like textured feed because some goats tend to get picky with it.. They'll eat all the stuff they like, but leave the rest..

If a wether decided he liked the cracked corn and ate a disproportionate amount of that while leaving the rest, it could be deadly. Afterall, cracked corn has a ghastly Ca ratio of about 1:4.



With pellets, they're getting correct proportions in every swipe.