Cheapest milk replacer

[allenslabs]

Hey there all..... trying to do my homework here. I won't have enough milk from my goats (dried most all of em up) to feed the meat kids I'm wanting to raise. What do you all think are the cheapest and most healthy forms of milk replacer?? I've love to hear it!

[Tracy in Idaho]

I figured this out last year -- cheapest was plain old whole cows milk from the grocery store, and they'll do a WHOLE lot better on it than milk replacer.

Tracy

[oberhaslikid]

Milk replacer isnt for goats.Cheapest isnt always better somewhere you seem to pay along the way.I agree with the above poster Vitamin D from the store and always available even at local conv.store late at night when you forgot to stop at the feed store.been there and done that.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

Exactly what Tracy said. If you purchase a kid from me and you don't have goat milk, aren't going to pasteurize or test the goats you have, I wean them onto Whole Vitamin D Grocery Store milk before they leave. In fact with my milk sellling for $7 a gallon and I am able to pick up a gallon of milk at CVS Pharmacy with my card for less than $3...and I don't have to pasteurize it...guess what my kids are going to be raised on next year?

When you start getting other info on milk replacers, make sure you don't listen to anyone who tells you to use anything that contains soy. Next add the price of at least 2 or 3 dead kids to the price of the bags.

Better go back in the archives of any list and read all the deaths that are caused by milk replacers in kids...it is not milk...it is whey...kids on whey or soy bloat, they do not grow, they have weakend immune systems from starvation and dehydration so that cocci or pnemonia ends up killing them. Worse are the 'colostrum' replacers...colostrum supplements are not replacers, and if they don't contain IGg in them they are not even supplements. Colostrum supplements give you kids calories and the laxative effect to get out the first stool (meconium)only...they contain no antibodies. Kids are born with zero antibodies from their dams, zero...they only recieve antibody from colostrum. Why it's so important that they recieve quality colostrum if you have it...older does first milkings. Vicki

[HappyFarmer]

I also have a question. Would instant nonfat dry cows milk work too? I Heard of someone using this instead to save on refridgerator space when they had a lot of bottle babies. I have no idea what the outcome was for the kids. I was wondering about the nonfat part being good for them.

HF

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

You could use low fat, think saanen milk Oh I will get it for that but nonfat? I can't see how they would thrive on it. Biggy here is the first 3 or 4 weeks until they are ruminanting. They need the fat, the calories, and the calcium to grow. Once they are eating hay (hopefully alfalfa) or some grain, eating not picking at it, then you can slowly move them to even soy replacers because they are ruminants now.

I am canning all my extra milk...Istop milk sales Dec 1st so I can fill my freezer for us, I also freeze my soap milk...then I am canning the rest, planning on picking up some dairy kids to raise out this winter...I am going to literally go sit at the dairy when she starts freshening does, read a book, and deliever kids out of their moms and into my truck Vicki

[gryndlgoat]

Vicki
Can you share your method for canning milk? I run out of freezer space so fast- would be very interested in learning how to can goat milk.

[DocM]

Doc's Milk Replacer

1 gallon of whole milk
1 cup of fresh, cultured buttermilk or one cup of fresh, cultured yogurt
1 can of evaporated milk
Pour off about 1/3 of the whole milk and set aside add buttermilk and
evaporated milk then top off with the milk you set a side shake it

Sometimes, for weak kids, I also add a little karo syrup.

I have a dairy near me, and they'll sell me pasteurized milk in 5 gallon milk cans.

[allenslabs]

Well Vicki seems like you and I are in the same frame of mind huh? HAHA!! There are a lot of amish near me that I could get milk from cheap I'm sure. One friend even suggested borrow a cow and putting the kids on the cow. HAHA! Can you just see a big ole cow w/4 little bitty babies sitting under it going to town? HAHA!! I figure if I can get the cows milk from the amish for about a $1 a gal then that might be ok. The milk buyers stopped buying their milk and so there are these amish with 10 holsteins that they have no use for the milk. It's sad. But still the milk people were only giving them like $5.50 or 7 per 100lb of milk. Ridiculous! So I think that they might be happy with $1 a gallon. If I could do that and sell the kids for about $50 each I might be able to actually profit here if I sell them at about 6 weeks old.

I love having this brain trust here! It's just great!!

[ozark_jewels]

Originally Posted by allenslabs

There are a lot of amish near me that I could get milk from cheap I'm sure. One friend even suggested borrow a cow and putting the kids on the cow. HAHA! Can you just see a big ole cow w/4 little bitty babies sitting under it going to town? HAHA!! I figure if I can get the cows milk from the amish for about a $1 a gal then that might be ok.

We actually did have a kid that would suck on the cow... I raise my kids on raw cows milk and they do *very* well.
I have *rescued* milk replacer kids before and I would never reccomend using it if you have other options. These kids were like a month old, had constant scours and were as small or smaller than my newborns. It was pitiful. After a week on raw cows milk they had regular pelleted poop and were starting to grow regular hair instead of fuzz.
If you can get raw milk from the neighbors and the neighbors have *healthy* cows....go for it!!

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

The normal sterilized jars, lids, seals....I start with cold milk in a cold canner of water up to the shoulder....when the pressure is up to 10 pounds, I keep it at that for 1 hour, turn it off and wait for the pressure to drop. That's it. It's not a recipe just how I do it, and yep I am sure there is a recipe out there that is different than I do Sure the USDA site now will tell you it is dangerous to can milk. My old frankenstien canner, no seal, a bolt down lid, has a recipe book that even tells you how to dress the squirell before canning it!

Milkers, especially tame, tested ones who know the milk routine are dear out here, and I am betting the prices hold for a few more years, there is just soo much interest in your won milk supply. The dairy doelings will fill a niche that is needed...a price lower than our Nubians sell for even as family milkers, because folks buy them for bloodline most of the time. So I am going looking for doelings only (the dairy also means no registration papers for me to be anal about), grown out well they can easily freshen this time next year for milkers.

Doc, just don't see the logic in all that work of mixing and adding. Both buttermilk (OK if it's a real actual cultured one than yes I can see the bacteria being beneficial) but both buttermilk and canned evaporated milk are low fat products. Why dilute the fat further in the 3% fat whole milk by adding that? Now yogurt or kefier (with kefir being the far better) yes I can see it...but in our heat if you add any culture at all to it even diamond V yeast, you had better feed it in a hurry or you have a bucket of curds. If you want to guild the lilly add cream to the milk, same price, high fat. Vicki

[Jcran]

[QUOTE=DocM]Doc's Milk Replacer

1 gallon of whole milk
1 cup of fresh, cultured buttermilk or one cup of fresh, cultured yogurt
1 can of evaporated milk
Pour off about 1/3 of the whole milk and set aside add buttermilk and
evaporated milk then top off with the milk you set a side shake it
QUOTE]

I used this recipe, after disasterous results with LandoLakes Goat Milk Replacer....scours, scours, scours. My doe kid IMMEDIATELY cleared up and thrived (it also smells good and can be substituted for cereal milk with little or no knowledge-ask my husband)

[DocM]

Originally Posted by Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians

Doc, just don't see the logic in all that work of mixing and adding. Both buttermilk (OK if it's a real actual cultured one than yes I can see the bacteria being beneficial) but both buttermilk and canned evaporated milk are low fat products. Why dilute the fat further in the 3% fat whole milk by adding that? Now yogurt or kefier (with kefir being the far better) yes I can see it...but in our heat if you add any culture at all to it even diamond V yeast, you had better feed it in a hurry or you have a bucket of curds. If you want to guild the lilly add cream to the milk, same price, high fat. Vicki

I dunno, good question. I got the recipe from an old granny goat raiser (ha, nice grammar), and it worked so well I didn't want to mess with it. Maybe the evaporated milk is fortified further? I don't have a can available so I can't look on it. Good point about the heat too, not a problem here - we don't typically have "texas temps" up here in the rain belt.

[copperpennykids]

Hey Vicki,

No slamming the Saanens! I mean my girls range from 3.3%-4.2% butterfat. Maybe not as high as Nubian milk, but it tastes better! (okay, now I'm gonna get into trouble!)

Camille

[allenslabs]

I have to agree with Copperpenny!! I love my saanens and LOOOOOOOOOOVE the taste of the milk. I don't like that thick nubian milk compared to my big white girls..... K now remember...... just my opinion! HAHA!!

[moonspinner]

When I first got kids and didn't know better I used a soy replacer and lost a kid. For me, though others have used replacers successfully, I go with the whole cow's milk from the store. Never had a single problem and kids grew well. Some have voiced concern over the quality of store milk - all the antibiotics, etc given to commercial dairy cows - and even fears about disease - don't know how valid this is.

[Wendy]

I use milk replacer all the time. I have never lost a kid to it. FOr those of you that claim it is the replacer that kills the kid(s), how can you be so sure that is what did it? I have never had a kid scour on replacer. I have used Kent brand Lamb Milk Replacer & also Land-O-Lakes milk replacer. I think a lot of the problem people have is not mixing it correctly. I follow the instructions on the bag. Buying whole milk from the store at almost $3.00 a gallon would cost me a lot more than a bag of replacer which will feed them until they are weaned.

That being said, I canned excess milk & froze some too because goat milk is best for them. The canned milk is so convenient. Shake it, dump it in the bottle & you are set!

[AllWolf]

IMO I have used goat milk replacer for baby goats and never lost one due using it plus I also used goat milk replacers with some goat milk for a bit then when I went to the full goat milk replacer not a problem at all. I have also raised babies up on nothing but pure cows milk and never had a problem ither. Where lots of people runs into trouble is by over feeding them or not follow the directions correctly. Now that is a must to follow. I have never used other brands of milk replacer but purina goat milk replacer.

Good Luck on what ever you decide but besure to all your research that you can on all the milk replacers.

[SherrieC]

Vickie vickie vickie.. sigh..



I buy milk from an amish neighbor at $2 a gallon, as much as I need. and then I pastuerize it.

[trob1]

((when I went to the full goat milk replacer not a problem at all)))

You do know that it isn't made from goats milk though! They are made from cows milk and lots of other stuff added. So for less money and no preservatives and other stuff they do not need you can get whole cows milk.