What do you feed your goats & tell me your goat health secrets?

I also feed dried up old leaves in the winter time. I don't think they have a lot of nutrition left in them, maybe some minerals, but they are a good filler feed that I give along with alfalfa hay/pellets. I have recently found a pellet mill that sells alfalfa pellets for almost the same price as hay, and with the lack of waste, so worth it!

I feed a mix of oats, barley, beet pulp, corn, and ground flax to the girls on the milk stand and to kids. I start the grain with the kids when I switch to once a day bottles, as they don't seem too interested in it before that...then I'll keep them on it until breeding, since I breed them to kid as yearlings. If their condition is great, i will stop shortly after breeding, and then back to grain about a month pre-kidding, then slowly add back a bit.

I have normally just done the deccox-M in bottles, but this year, I think I will get some medicated feed at weaning, so I can keep them on their cocci prevention a little longer. I just found out the mill where I normally buy grain has a deccox concentrated pellet meant for adding into grain, so I think I'll use that...they do also make one for lambs and one for calves, that's a complete grain/feed, but I'd rather keep using my milker grain for kids. If you use a medicated feed, you do need to use something else for cocci when the kids are young, until they start eating enough of the feed to get enough meds into them.

I don't give my bucks any grain, just good hay. Mine tend to get their condition back from rut quickly at the end of winter, and especially in late spring/summer when the pasture is growing in super well.

I don't feed BOSS; it is too expensive for the amount of fat here, so I use flax instead, which I have found for cheaper around here. You will have to see what is available in your area. The flax I get is ground, because that mill automatically grounds it all when they get a batch, but I think probably it is best ground anyway--due to how tiny the seeds are, probably harder for the goat to grind up than a BOSS would be. The only problem is that once ground, it does have to be used up fairly quickly, especially when it is warm out so it doesn't spoil. In the shell, it can last for a really long time--so if you can get in bulk not ground and have a way to grind (I have heard a coffee grinder works, not sure), then that could be handy too.

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Nancy Boling
Frosted Mini Goats
Alpine and Nigerian Dwarf goats
2 Jersey heifers
1 guard llama
And whatever else shows up...
http://www.swfarm.net/

I'll let you know. I ordered 250 lbs of noble goat grower 16 and 250 lbs of noble goat Dairy Parlor 16.

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http://spottednubian.weebly.com/

Guess I'm a bit different. Been raising large Nubian "dairy" goats since around 1996 and have changed what I feed them several times, all from personal experiences with how my goats were affected.

What I've learned:
.....My area is deficient in selenium; so I supplement with Bo-Se shots.
.....My arera is NOT deficient in copper, yet when I started feeding them BOSS, they all developed that fish-tail symptom; thus, I'm cutting out the BOSS.
.....My buck(s) always get the very same foods as my does get and not once have I had a buck come down with urinary calculi.

What all are now getting (This is what "each" goat gets mixed together in their individual pans every morning.):

"whole" oats (1 cup)
Standley "pelleted" alfalfa (1 cup)
"shreaded" beet pulp (1 cup)

They are always free to browse under oak/hickory/popular/sweet gum trees and midst lespedeza "shrubs". There are also pine and cedar which they enjoy as well. Each of 3 pastures is a New Zealand "endophyte-free" mixture of cool/warm season grass.

Inside the barn there is ALWAYS baking soda and loose minerals in separate containers....both in each side of the barn. (The loose minerals is "Golden Harvest" from Hoeggers.) Periodically I give them each a glob of Replamin Plus. (I use to give them copper boluses but have not seen a need since stopping the BOSS.) Of course, there are always 5-gal buckets of fresh water hanging on the walls, one of the 3 is heated; and when the weather is not good for their being out browsing, they have the best bailed orchard grass I can find in their 3 feeders.

This food program, plus trimming hooves periodically and worming ONLY WHEN NECESSARY, has worked well for quite a few years.

TIP: Check with your local agricultural agent to find out what minerals are deficient in your area BEFORE you start supplementing your goats' feed with selenium and/or copper products.

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I am what I am! Acknowledging this is the beginning; and my growth is yet to end. http://motdaugrnds.com/farmsales ~~~~~ http://motdaugrnds.com

Thank you for posting this. I *knew* I had seen someone mention that BOSS seemed to increase fish tails. I'm experimenting with that.

Excellent summary of what you do and why. THANKS.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

Do you find it necessary to soak your beet pulp? I've read a lot of debates on soaking vs not for horses, but haven't seen much on it for goats. I have to buy it for my horse anyway and she gets it soaked, but if I could feed it to the goats dry I would..

I dont soak my beet pulp. No problems here.

My goats hate beet pulp. Only time they have ever eaten it was when it was offered to the horses & the goats thought they were missing out. They only nibbled a few moments. Wet dry they don't care they hate it.
However, my goats also act as if they are being abused if the weather is bad & they stay penned up with hay in their feeder. The hay comes from the front pasture, same grass the browse on all day, just doesn't taste the same once it has been through the baler.
Browse is 90%+ of our feed.

I feed beet pulp and they eat it just fine. Their diet cant be 90% browse here. Maybe once I can get the fence up. But not any time soon.

I'm reading up on flax in the human diet I've come across info saying it's like soy in how it
mocks estrogen in the body. While it's not GMO likely all soy is, is there a danger of too much estrogen in goats ?

Cali, I always give it "dry". I did find my goats always turn up their noses at most things new to them; so I introduced it slowly. It didn't take them long to love it!

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I am what I am! Acknowledging this is the beginning; and my growth is yet to end. http://motdaugrnds.com/farmsales ~~~~~ http://motdaugrnds.com

why do you think its so bad? I've had super luck with it, so much so that I'm now scared to try anything else.

I've been trying to reinvent the wheel. I'm going with simple from now on.

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http://spottednubian.weebly.com/

Noble Goat is as good as any other pelleted feed.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

I dont know. I just dont really like Purina personally. Thats my own personal thing. I would rather feed ADM. But for some people, they love Purina more than anything. I just dont think Purina is very good quailty feeds. But I know it was a lifesaver for you and your herd. But me persoanlly, I try to stay away from Purina.

I've seen mentioned before that beet pulp gives the animal a nice 'bloom'. I've never heard this term before. What does 'bloom' mean?

I am loving this thread. Comment to keep up with it and find it later. <3 I love you guys and your sharing and caring!