Milk replacer debate

Creamers · #21 03/17/12, 10:40 PM

Whole cow's milk -

dbarjacres · #22 03/19/12, 06:51 PM

Well, here's my experience from last week....

The only replacer I would ever use and have just fine in the past is Land O Lakes Doe's Match. I've seen the results of the Cows Match for years - very nice growthy calves. So when my two new Texas Mini Mancha babies got here on 3/8 I put them on Does Match, I don't have any goat milk now. They switched over good and no diarrhea. BUT 2 days later, the buckling had long - as in 10" long - strings of hard poo - like a pearl necklace, not mucousy either. The poop would just hang out of him until he or his "sister" stepped on it and broke it off. We fed a dairy calf we bought last year Cows Match and he had very hard poop - like dog logs - the whole time he was on the replacer, I rememberd that and thought the replacer may be the issue and I went and bought whole cows milk and mixed 1/2 and 1/2. That night he was already pooping normal little berries.

Corsair has been fine ever since and I won't be buying anymore replacer! Oh, it was $40 for an 8lb pail which would have lasted about 1.5 weeks.

goatkid · #23 03/19/12, 11:37 PM

Whole cow's milk here. The first year I had bottle babies we fed replacer and it was a disaster. Though the kids all had adequate colostrum at birth, they did not have good immune systems. We had problems with bloat, scours, crypto and even though we vaccinated for entero, we lost kids to it. We were trying to raise bucklings we got from a commercial dairy for meat and the survivors were puny. The doelings I kept to breed just didn't seem as hearty as goats raised on milk. Some years we have been short on goat milk the first few litters and I had to use cow's milk. The kids did very well on it.

TRAILRIDER · #24 03/20/12, 10:00 AM

Although the kids are doing great on the milk replacer, I think I will s-l-o-w-l-y change them over to cows milk. It will have to be from the store though. And if I have a huge amount of goats milk soon (?) I will start them on a bit of that too. My goat will have her own babies to feed so I'm not sure how much extra she'll have. But cows milk will definately be cheaper than the replacer I'm using. Thanks everyone for the input.

CaliannG · #25 03/20/12, 01:35 PM

I know that several of the big operations use milk replacer for rejects, so SOME brands must be okay...but I haven't seen it. Even for bottle calves, I only use half replacer, and the other half is real milk of some kind.

I have lost calves on replacer. I haven't lost any calves on the half-n-half mix I have used.

I have NEVER used replacer for kids.....always whole milk of some kind. I have also never lost a kid that was born alive and normally formed. (Knock on wood)