04/13/06, 06:40 PM
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Registered User
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Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 5,662
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Grain isn't just for calories. It's high in phosphorus, which is needed to balance the high calcium in the alfalfa.
My goats don't like alfalfa pellets much, either -- again, they are too hard (these are definitely the small pellets, not the larger cubes). Our feed store accidentally got a shipment of pellets in that were a little larger, and must have been a bit softer, because my goats actually liked them. But I had only gotten one bag, and when I went back for more, they were back to the hard kind and refused to order the ones the goats liked (said they were worried about liability because sheep and goats might choke on them!  ). Wish we had a feed store around here that wasn't a chain, sigh.
Right now I'm feeding alfalfa hay pretty much all they can eat (my Kinder does and the Oberhasli buck are in good shape, the BoerXOber doe and the Kinder buck are fat); a rather small amount of COB w/molasses to everybody who isn't milking, with the necessary increases in COB for the does in milk; the bucks each get a handful/day of BOSS (black-oil sunflower seeds), while the does each get two handfuls; and of course free-choice goat mineral -- I'm using Sweetlix Meat-maker goat mineral, as it's all I can get here that's loose rather than a block. Shipping is too expensive to mail-order heavy stuff like that. Everybody is doing great, kids are healthy and vigorous and growing like weeds, and the milkers are putting out. But it ain't cheap.
Kathleen
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