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Alfalfa woes... (pictures added)
TSC has my Standlee pellets on sale- 40lbs for $10.49. My plan was to stock up as much as I could before the price jumped up to $12.99 in late October...
But thats all changed now. Why?? Because some head honcho decided that stocking the Standlee alfalfa in ONE TON CUBES would be better (saves $0.29 per lb).... In order to push the cubes, after the bags they have in stock are gone, they won't order anymore for at least 6 weeks!!!! These cubes are just the pellets in shrink wrap & it's impossible to load/unload unless you use a front end loader or something, plus I dunno how you use them....Guess you make a hole in the top of the cube & scoop it out?........ Manager & I both agree it's stupid & impractical :hohum: There were 12 bags left that we could find in the back (manager will call me if she finds more). I bought 6, & my friend bought 6. Alfalfa squares that are 55-60lbs are $18.50 & it's very stemmy & brownish. Two other brands of pellets I can get are $15.99 for 50lbs & very, very dusty. One other brand is $14.99, but has "animal fat" on the tag... So, today, we picked up our six 50lb bags/bales of Chaffhaye for $12.50 each. Like the smell & the packaging is very sturdy... We tried some free samples a while back & liked them...... But the bucks WILL NOT touch it. The babies aren't crazy about it, but I mixed a bit in with their meat goat pellets & they cleaned it up ok...... The grown does LOVE it. If this works, eventually the boys will have to learn to love it or starve.... But right now with full rut & Austin on the mend from his failed suicide attempt I'm not going to force them to switch.... So, I think I'm going to ration my alfalfa pellet stash out to the boys (they don't get much anyways) & go ahead & switch the girls completely to the Chaffhaye...... If this trial period works out, I think I'll just have it shipped in by the pallet :) Local dealer was so nice.... It's an individual, not a feed store & since he's about an hour away, he just met me in the town I grocery shop in to save me the fuel :) Plus, he's not price gouging. One feed store just started carrying it & they are selling for $13.99, but this dealer is only charging a few cents more than what his cost are after freight charges. Wish I lived in the land of plentiful hay! But since I don't, this will have to do. I'll update on their condition after I've used it for a while, and I'm going to see what kind of shelf life I get on it after it's been opened. Really bummed that I didn't get a bigger pellet stash stored away though.... |
My goats haven't seen alfalfa since early spring. Ran out of alfalfa hay, stopped buying alfalfa pellets.
My goats generally hate alfafla pellets. Well, the boers will scarf 'em down but the dairies hate them. Boers don't NEED alflafa, dairies DO. I'm not paying out the nose for my boers to get fat. My bucks don't need alfalfa. They also don't get grain - though that may change as the poor things are in rut and spending way too much energy beating the snot outta one another. I switched to calcium carbonate top dressed on the grain. My picky dairy doe dislikes the stuff I put in her grain, but she's picky over EVERYTHING. Thank goodness her daughter (who may replace her dam) is an 'eater'. The other dairy doe does pretty good cleaning up her grain with or without the calcium. Grass round bales of 1st cut (not impressive quality, but no mould and not teribly stemmy and everybody is maintaining well on it)is 50.00. I was paying that this time last year for quality alfalfa/grass mix 2nd cut. It's only going to get worse. Apparently the 2nd cut grass is 100.00/round bale. I'll stick to my calcium carbonate and 1st cut grass, thanks. :) |
We just swapped from alfalfa to prarie (what the local feed store has), there's
a $4/bale difference right now and with no one in milk - forget it! Of course they keep turning their noses up at it.... *sigh* spoiled goats. ETA: We're still paying between $12-13/bale for alfalfa, it never went back down here - going to be a long winter! |
I can't get the girls to consume the calcium carbonate. They just flip the edge of the feed bucket, making everything inside "jump" and the relatively heavy granules fall to the bottom where they get promptly ignored. How are you getting in down their throats?
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We get the alfalfa pellets from Hirsch. $11 for a 50 pound bag. Only had problems once, when we got a bag from the end of a run.
No hay here yet. If we don't find some soon, it's going to be a long, expensive winter. I'm thinking about selling the buck and butchering everything that's not a breedable female. |
Donna I'd love to completely cut the alfalfa but can't.
My grass hay is "so-so" very weedy (goats love it) but no clue the protein content.... It was just free hay from my FIL's feild. I have absolutely NO browse, and not a single blade of grass for them to eat...... I have rocks, dirt & 1/2 dead cactus......... Nothing has grown back since the wildfires consumed 3/4 of my property. I don't like to feed lots of grain (& it's sky high now too) so I feel for my situation, alfalfa is nessesary........Especially since most of their protein comes from alfalfa... Tried the powdered calcium carbonate & it was a huge fight to get them to eat it..... They'll eat Tums though :p I have cut back quite a bit on the amounts of alfalfa I used to feed, and do give a couple Tums a day, (I bought the generic fruit flavored Tums at Sam's pretty cheap) but I'm just not comfortable cutting all the alfalfa... The free weedy hay (I have ten 950-1000lb rounds for 10 goats) from my FIL saved me so I can use what I would have spent on crappy $130 round bales of grass & put it towards Chaffhaye instead if this trial period works out :) |
Actually, just supplying a bit of a protein supplement via grain or SBM dairy pellet is probably adequate. Goats don't require THAT high of protein, even when in milk. Something like 12% is probably enough (just oats) They get MOST of their required protein (about half) simply by digesting the rumen bugs as 'microbial protein' as their stomach contents moves into the small intestine.
My one girl is pickier than the other and does nose around the feed a lot with the Ca carbonate. I spray their grain with veggie oil I keep in a spray bottle and mix in well. It's eat or go hungry. Then again, the pickier girl annoys me at every turn for refusing feed for *no reason*. I'm less than sympathetic at this point. :) How much calcium and what kind of calcium is in tums? Just crunched some numbers I got off of Merck website (don't have my nutrient req for small ruminants book here on on Campus with me, it's back at the farm) and for a doe producing 2 gallons of milk a day at 4.5% fat, she needs an ADDITIONAL 21.6 GRAMS of calcium intake per day on top of maintenance requirements. Maintenance is a measly 4-6g depending on BW. Most goats don't produce that much - half that amount for a gallon-a-day producer... so total a 2 gal/day producer would need somewhere between 25.6-27.6g Ca/day. Wonder how much I've been giving/day in g. Problem is, absorption qualities vary. calcium carbonate is cheap because it's not super absorbable. To increase palatability, I've been thinking of stirring in some powdered sugar/kool-aid, and making my own 'powdered' tums, lol. |
Alfalfa pellets here are $20 for 50lbs...very pricey. So, I am going to contact our local Chaffhaye distributor and buy that at $13.25 for 50lbs. I can't afford it by the pallet but it's a lot cheaper than the pellets and my goats aren't real fond of the pellets so maybe they will like this better.
I haven't tried the calcium carbonate yet but that is my next step. They will probably treat it like the have the diatomasious earth and snub their nose at it. Picky creatures. |
Donna the generic Tums I got at Sam's says:
Calcium carbonate USP 750mg. Got three 200 tablet bottles for $4.00. Goats like them & they are fruit flavored :) CJbegins: Are you buying your Chaffhaye from a feed store or an individual who became a dealer? After taking with some folks I've found in many areas feed stores are charging more than the individuals who became dealers... |
I will be buying from an individual. I have seen it advertised in many places but the prices were always the same...$13.25 per bag or $13.00 x40 bags/pallet and then the prices improve from there the more pallets you buy.
The other thing they talk about is that one 50 lb bag actually equals about 90 lbs of feed due to way it is processed and it's quality and that 100% of it is consumable. So that $13.25 looks pretty good to me. http://www.hayinabag.com/chaffhaye_alfalfa.html |
Mine do eat all of it, then lick the feeder clean.... There are some long stems mixed in there... About 9"-10" long & I noticed mine grab these up first & gobble them up. The only waste I'm seeing right now is when they get excited & grab a mouthful 10x's too big for their mouths & some drops down when they lift their heads out of the feeder.
My feeders are long & kind of shallow, so I think I'll need to clip small buckets to the fence instead as thet aren't dropping as much if I feed from a bucket... |
I drizzle corn oil on their feed, then sprinkle on the calcium carbonate. Mix. It sticks. :)
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Dunno why :shrug: I only bought a 1lb bag of it from our health food store (can't find the 50lb bags anywhere) & it was $3.10. Mine eat the Tums and it's comparable in price, so I do give that & a rationed alfalfa (milking girls were getting about 1 1/2lbs - 2lbs of pellets a day & doing great)... Plus Tums has another bonus.... I keep them in my pocket, and when the goats stress me out to the point of heart burn, I can eat one too :p :rolleyes: |
Have to drylot my goats and horse for a few days, as I need to repair the South-side fence, and my neighbor is being a complete southern end of a north-bound donkey. So... I don't have hay stored right now (No place for it since the damage to my outbuildings, and in non-drought years, our pasture is year around, just different things in it depending upon the season), so we are at Co-Op, and DH and I decide to try the Chaffaye. The clerk *swears* that the only kind they have is the grass/alfalfa mix. Okay, a bale of plain Coastal Bermuda there is $10. Chaffaye is $13.10, and a bale of Alfalfa is $17.95.
So, two bags of Chaffaye. Get it home, open it up....oh, this stuff is MUCH shorter than hay! (I kinda expected something LIKE hay, with 6"-10" long stems, but softer, for some reason.) Stems are 3"-4", at best, and it does, indeed, fall right through my regular hay feeders. Ummm, not good. So, I go feed the babies, who are crying for their bottles, and think on it. We have PILES of scrap lumber around here. I mean a LOT. In every shape, size, and length imaginable, all in stacks by size and condition. We even have timber sized bamboo. Finally, get a glass of tea, call to my DH and say, "Okay, I think I know what I want here. One of the smaller pieces of 1" plywood, nailed to some 2x6's for frame, attach four 2x4's for legs, put another piece of plywood on top, slanted, for a roof. The "tray" part should be about 2' from the ground, and the roof 2' from that. Would you, could you, do that for me?" "Just nailed, not screwed or anything?" "Just nailed, but don't be stingy with them." And hour and a half later, I had exactly what I wanted, and we hauled it into the corral. Oops, need some extras...immediate jumping into feed tray by younger does. Okay, some cut to length furring strips later, and no one is jumping into it. So. add in bag of ALFALFA (not grass/afalfa mix, like the clerk said. Apparantly their computer was wrong) Chaffaye, and...watch. Alfalfa Chaffaye is a HUGE hot with ALL of the goats, even the exceptionally suspicious doelings, who won't even take a TREAT without dissecting it first to make sure it isn't infested with aliens attempting to take them over. However, the horse is very confused. She goes over to the goat feeder, swedges her nose into one side to barely get her lips on some, and takes a small mouthful. Then looks in astonishment at the goats because this stuff is obviously not FOOD. Then she wanders over to her feeder (set above goat height) and takes a mouthful, and notices it is the same not-food stuff. Then she forlornly wanders to where the bermuda hay was set out this morning, and looks for wisps of that, then repeats the process with this obviously not-food-stuff. The goats are being free-fed (They LOVE the new feeder. For the big goats, it is just at feeding height. For the smaller goats, if a big goat tries to chase them away, they can duck under the feeder and come up on the other side, away from the other, pushy goat. There is plenty of room for everyone to eat at once with space left over.) and I am watching them carefully for any signs of digestive unrest. The horse is being rationed, but she doesn't seem to be eating enough for digestive unrest. (She can get small mouthfulls out of the goat feeder, but cannot get far enough in to pig out, even if she thought it was food, and not this strange, not-food-stuff.) So, new things, and new food, big hit with goats, causing massive confusion in horse. :) |
I didn't know they had a mixed Chaffhaye! Is it the Chaffhaye brand or just a similar product?
The alfalfa chaffhaye I have varies in size..... The leaves of course are small, and stems range in size from 3"-10" long.... The majority of them are 6" or so... My long narrow, shallow pellet feeder isn't really ideal for feeding Chaffhaye though..... I have 2 hook over buckets that are deep and they work better..... If I decide to switch to this permanently, I think I want some sort of keyhole type feeder with a deep bin.... Day 2 feeding it. I mixed it with the alfalfa pellets & the babies are getting braver.... By this evening they were finishing the Chaffhaye bits first, then they cleaned up the pellets.... Bucks still won't touch it, though I only put out a handful for them with their alfalfa pellets. The grown does are CRAZY for it...... They moan with mouthfuls.... Found a HUGE white yeast colony..... About 10" long, 9" wide & about 4" deep, Here's a picture of some of the yeast colony after I pulled it out of the bag, I thought it would stink, but it smells yummy: http://i849.photobucket.com/albums/a...-28-02_166.jpg ... Took it out to the girls... First they snorted, did the nibble, head toss routine & then almost plowed me over to get it. Star will eat the yeast clumps, but only in lil pieces.... Bleu grabbed mouthfuls far too big in her attempt to keep the others from it :p |
Thought I'd share a closer pic of the yeast colony...... It's the consistency of a thick yogurt with a very smooth texture..... Smells great, & curiosity got the better of me & I tasted it.... Really mild, kinda yogurty-with a faint yeast taste... Not "yummy" in my book, but the goats like it :D
http://i849.photobucket.com/albums/a...2812214136.jpg Here is the yeast clump next to some Chaffhaye that didn't have any yeasty bits: http://i849.photobucket.com/albums/a...2812214202.jpg |
No yeast colonies in the first bag.
The new feeder is approximately 6 inches deep, and the room from tray to head is plenty for all the goats to just stand there eating, without pulling any out. The only waste I got after putting in the feeder was from the horse, who would get a small mouthfull, and then drop it in disgust, because this stuff is NOT "food". She has been begging me all evening for some grass hat. ~sighs~ I am a mean horse Mommy too, and she will dang well eat it when she gets hungry enough. |
Oh, and it is Chaffaye brand. Yes, they do sell a mix, but not much of iy, and my Co-op had it wrong in their computer. The computer SAID that the onl Chaffaye they sold or EVER had was grass/alfalfa mix. What they loaded in my truck was straight alfalfa Chaffaye.
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My bucks still won't touch it, but then again they are just pacing the fence, blubbering like fools.... They won't even eat grain right now. The babies will eat it, but only if I mix with alfalfa pellets.......... I really need to build a better feeder for it though..... |
Today, Truffles carefully and thoughtfully munched on her Chaffaye. I do believe she has come to the decision that it IS food. :)
The goats still adore it. Still less than 1% waste. I could grow to like this stuff! They did eat less of it today than yesterday, but today, it isn't a new "treat". Took my girls, Yaiza and Nipper, to my friend's place so they could settle in a couple of days before they get A.I.'d. They did NOT appreciate the royal accommodation that they received there (my friend has better facilities than I do), nor the fact that there were mustang vines and yaupon bushes growing in plethora all in their new accommodations, nor, if fact that mustang grapes were falling around them...treats all over. No, they were worried. "You are LEAVING US HERE?!? But...but....but...what if a pterodactyl swoops in and EATS US while you are GONE? What if Graboids tunnel underneath the fence and DEVOUR US?!" I hope Nipper gives my friend an easy time on the milk stand. She may act like a perfect angel; she may be a horrid beast since the surroundings are new and she is worried. Here's to hoping she is more angel than demon. |
This chaffhay is to replace hay and grain?
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Chaffaye replaces hay and alfalfa pellets. You still feed grain (or fodder sprouts) to those that usually get grain.
I am looking at going to a Chaffaye/Fodder Sprouts system this year to cut costs. So far, in this short experiment with Chaffaye, I have gotten about 1-2% waste. With hay, I get about 30% wasted, and with alfalfa pellets, about 10% wasted. The Chaffaye is more expensive ($13.50 for a 50lb bag) than either a comparable bale of hay ($10 per bale for horse quality hay here) or a 50lb bag of alfalfa pellets ($11.85 per bag right now), but considering the lack of waste, and the fact that I would be buying BOTH hay and alfalfa pellets this winter, it comes out MUCH cheaper. |
I'm experimenting with it right now & have cut Bleu's grain by 1/4 & am feeding her about 2lbs of Chaffhaye a day and I'm going to see if she can still maintain weight & production. So far, so good, but I haven't had enough time to see results. Will report back later, but if this works, then I'll replace my alfalfa pellets, & cut my grain amounts back a lil too.... I still feed hay, simply because I have 10 rounds that I got for free ;)
If you want to try it, call the office & speak to Kimber & ask her where you can get some small sample packs to see if your herd likes it before you invest in a bale..... She shipped me several 1 1/2lb samples in the mail to try... Super nice gal :) My friend feeds Chaffhaye to her does & feeds very lil grain.... I'm talking a few cups per day for full size does & they do well on it. She still feeds hay though as they cut/bale their own. Caliann have you checked the website for dealers near you that aren't feed stores? Acco here is carrying it now & chargeing $13.99 per 50lbs, but the individual I buy from charges $12.50... He said feed stores are generally charging more..... |
Wow, my tsc has the standlee pellets on sale for 9.99 right now. Guess I better get some.
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John, I saw that. I will be making a run on Wednesday.
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Crystal, the only other Chaffaye dealer near me was a small, family owned feed store in Wixon Valley called McAsh Feeds. Great place, lovely people! He kept baby chicks for sale year round, and preferred heritage breeds.
~sighs~ I was so disappointed when he shut down. He was also the only place one could get Cargill products. :( But it is really tough to compete with the Co-Op, and he was only 7 miles away from the Co-Op. Most folks (including me) have an account with the Co-op that lets us do custom mixes, and contract for price freezes. He simply could not offer that kind of service. |
Standlee hay is just east of us. But I don't know what it's selling for nowadays as I have only purchased their compressed alfalfa in the past when I absolutely had to. Way too expensive for us. I think we paid about 8.00 per bale last spring until our regular guy could haul us some.
We can get pure alfalfa right down the road delivered at 700.00 per stacker load, which is about 8.00 for approximately 70 lb bale. Sounds like Texas prices are through the roof! :( |
Texas prices for alfalfa are always through the roof, as we have alfalfa weevils and blister beetles down here, o we don't grow the stuff.
When the midwest is getting drought, though, prices are REALLY high! |
Yea, I've never seen "affordable" alfalfa here in Texas. In the town they grow the Chaffhaye here in Texas they have more reasonable alfalfa (though from what I hear Chaffhaye now owns a majority of those feilds)..... I bought hay up there 4 years ago as we were in the area.... Feilds are up at high elevations & flood irrigated. Beautiful hay & I bought 65lb alfalfa squares for $6.75 out of the field & freaky pretty, heavy grass squares for $3 each.
I'll likely NEVER see hay prices like that again. |
Crystal, my DH is researching DIY Chaffaye. LOL
He was using me as a sounding board after we re-did the milking stall last night. His thought is that Chaffaye is fermented and bagged wet, so that you are paying for a lot of water. While pellets and cubes are completely dry weight. So he is going to try getting a bag of cubes (which are cheaper than pellets down here), soaking them until they are soft, mixing them with a few handfuls of Chaffaye to inoculate, putting them in bags and using the shop vac to suck the air out of the bags, seal them and let them ferment a while, and see what happens. He is hoping to get something Chaffaye-like, but twice the volume. I'll let you know how that experiment works out. |
Sounds like a plan!
I wonder if it would be comparable to Chaffhaye if you used the dried cubes though? The Chaffhaye is fresh alfalfa, they add beneficial inoculates, mist with a tiny bit of molasses to feed the beneficial buggies, then let ferment in air tight bags for at least 2 weeks... I wonder if you could get comparable nutrition using fully dried alfalfa? Would some Chaffhaye mixed in be enough inoculant to make it work?? Maybe if you could get a jumbo yeast colony like the one in my picture (which BTW, that one went all the way to the bottom of the bag..... Lots O' good buggies there) & use that? Oh! You know those Space Saver bags on the infomercials? I have a few of the giant cubes that hold insane amounts of stuff..... You could try that. :p |
Hmmm. If tums have 750mg of CaCarbonate, then you'd have to feed about 35 of them to give 26g of calcium. Thats only 17.5 tums per feeding! (omg!)
I weighed my tablespoon of Calcium Carbonate that I put on the grain - it's about 25g each feeding. Giving it 2x and at such a high amount, it may compensate for the partial absorbance of CaCarbonate and pickiness of some does. And, my girls are not producing anywhere near 2 gallons/milk per day this late in lactation (or even in early lactation, lol). So, considering they do et some from pasture, grain, and hay, they're probably getting an adequate amount. Now if only they'd eat it more readily. I've experimented with just putting the oil on there - they still don't like it. I'm wondering if they'd like cocosoya. Expensive, but you don't have to use a TON. |
Yea, if I wasn't feeding ANY alfalfa, I'd worry about it, but I simply reduced my alfalfa from free choice to much smaller rationed amounts so Tums isn't their only source of Calcium, so I'm not worrying.... At least they'll eat Tums, I can't get them to comsume the calcium carbonate no matter what I try.... They'll bury their nose down into the feed & throw it all over the place :(
What is cocosoya? |
Haha- I thought cocosoya was some form of calcium supplement I've never heard of. :)
Mine like coconut oil..... I started using it when I couldn't afford BOSS or rice bran anymore. But they won't eat the grain with oil if I put the calcium carbonate in it :( It's annoying because in the beginning Bleuberry ate it, but once she decided she didn't like it, she'd rather toss her grain out of tge bucket than eat it with the CC... Wish they made a bigger Tums! My girls scarf those down like candy, but the highest I could find was 1000mg per tablet, and to cut out all alfalfa, and supply enough calcium that way would cost a fortune, so I might as well feed alfalfa.... I've seen various cattle calcium gels, though I've never priced them or paid much attention..... I'm betting supplementing calcium that way wouldn't be anymore cost effective than alfalfa.. |
What is the calcium carbonate for? I missed that somewhere!
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Calcium carbonate is to keep the does from getting hypocalcemia, or severe calcium deficiency, which can kill them. (It is also called "milk fever".)
When does are pregnant, they pull a lot of calcium out of their bodies so the babies can develop bones. When does are milking, they put a lot of calcium into their milk for the same reason (Goat milk is higher in calcium than cow milk). If they don;t get enough calcium in their diet to replace what they are putting out, the can get sick and die. If you hear of a doe dropping dead for no apparent reason shortly after kidding, it is very likely it is from a lack of calcium. We feed alfalfa because it is high in calcium. But frankly for many folks, it is expensive, or it isn't enough, so we also supplement with calcium carbonate. It is one of the few cases where more is....more. Does can die of lack of calcium, but I have never heard of a doe overdosing on calcium. |
Thank you for sharing that. Somehow I missed that whole thing. I thought I had the details covered; loose minerals, baking soda, cooper bolus, wormers, oak leaves for worms and somehow I missed the entire calcium carobonate issue!
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You don't have to feed calcium carbonate. Many are using it so they don't have to feed alfalfa... Some are using a bit, and reducing the amount of alfalfa fed.... Some just feed alfalfa and don't mess with the calcium carbonate.
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Wow. After reading this thread I feel extremely fortunate to have found 3rd cutting alfalfa for $8 per 70 lb bale. I loaded up on about twice what I thought I'd need just in case I ended up finding some animal at a great price this winter. :) Lucky thing, since I ended up with 3 goats I hadn't planned on. I was worried it might be "too rich" for the goats, but it sounds like it might be perfect. Yay! Thank you, ladies.
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