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05/29/08, 09:56 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: central pennsylvania
Posts: 33
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Chocolate in Goats Diet
We can buy bags of ground up chocolate for cheaper than a bag of molasses. If we mix this chocolate in as a replacer of molasses, will it hurt goats? If their bred?
Thanks so much!
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05/29/08, 10:31 PM
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Eastern North Carolina
Posts: 33,554
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Molasses is mostly used to add glucose to the diet. Chocolate wont do that .
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05/29/08, 11:19 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Montana
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Do NOT give chocolate to goats. It's poison to goats, dogs and cats.
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05/30/08, 06:00 AM
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More dharma, less drama.
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: Texas Coastal Bend/S. Missouri
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After you've been on the board a while, you'll discover that molasses is pretty controversial. There's a faction that is opposed to molasses at all because it's bad for the pH of the rumen. There's a faction that uses sweet feed with molasses.
Just a heads up. 
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05/30/08, 07:10 AM
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Pook's Hollow
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Ontario, Canada
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Quote:
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Do NOT give chocolate to goats. It's poison to goats, dogs and cats.
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And small children.
Chocolate contains theobromine which is a stimulant similar to caffeine. Not good in large quantities.
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05/30/08, 07:18 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: kansas
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wish someone would tell my dog that he is 10 and has been eating chocolate all his life
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05/30/08, 07:28 AM
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Maryland
Posts: 1,252
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Quote:
Originally Posted by prairiedog
wish someone would tell my dog that he is 10 and has been eating chocolate all his life
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Tell me about it when we got our first ever dog she downed a pound of fugde I bought for my brothers b-day. As new dog owners we expected her to croak over that second. But she lived and is doing wonderful. And has since ate a ton of chocolate. 
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05/30/08, 07:49 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by breezywayfarm
We can buy bags of ground up chocolate for cheaper than a bag of molasses. If we mix this chocolate in as a replacer of molasses, will it hurt goats? If their bred?
Thanks so much!
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I would not feed chocolate to farm animals.
Molasses is used in feed for two main purposes.
1. To hold down and combine the dust together from the fines where it is ground up.
2. To encourage, and entice animals to try something new when they first start eating feed. Mainly to small baby livestock as a feed starter because it is sweet.
Molasses is not really needed in any feed, and it has very little feed value to livestock.
Just runs up the cost of feed, which the industries feed companies like.
Using to much can cause loose bowls ... diarrhea, scours.
bumpus
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05/30/08, 07:56 AM
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Cannon Farms
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Monroe Ga
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theobromine is a higher concentrate in darker bitter chocolates so if your feeding a milk chocolate your probably not going to see much effect unless your dog gets allot of it at once. It is a toxin to the body and the body has a hard time getting rid of it and it can build up. Kidney and liver damage is hard to see from the outside.
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05/30/08, 08:23 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by breezywayfarm
We can buy bags of ground up chocolate for cheaper than a bag of molasses. If we mix this chocolate in as a replacer of molasses, will it hurt goats? If their bred?
Thanks so much!
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Any chocolate you can buy cheaper than molasses is probably a very low grade chocolate. I have no personal experience with feeding chocolate to goats, so I won't say it will or won't hurt them, but I don't know why in the world you feel obligated to give chocolate or molasses to your goats in the first place.
Most goats in the world live their entire lives and never taste grain. It certainly doesn't need anything sweet like that. When I want to give my goats a treat, I throw a tree limb with leaves attached over the fence, or I throw them out a banana peel.
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05/30/08, 09:15 AM
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Join Date: May 2006
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I am another that would like to know why you want to feed molasses to goats? What do you think it does for them?
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05/30/08, 12:21 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: central pennsylvania
Posts: 33
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We don't feed the molasses directly to the goats, it gets mixed in the feed to help as a sweetner and to add energy. And the chocolate is not a low grade, there's nothing wrong with it. It all comes from Hershey. But some of the choclate they can not sell because the machine that does that wrapping gets messed up or something simple like that. We live in central PA so were only about 40 minutes from hershey.
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05/30/08, 12:23 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: central pennsylvania
Posts: 33
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And I didn't mean to start anything by asking, I was just simply wondering if chocolate could be substituted in instead of molasses without endangering the goats.
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05/30/08, 01:25 PM
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More dharma, less drama.
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Join Date: May 2002
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I think the answer is.....
Don't do it.
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05/30/08, 01:34 PM
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Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Wisconsin
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Chocolate and molasses are 2 totally different things.
Pure chocolate isn't even sweet! Processed chocolate is pure junk and I dont see how it wouldn't hurt eventually. It doesnt provide people with any good.
It sure isnt needed for the goats. It could rot their teeth too out I would think.
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05/30/08, 02:17 PM
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Banned
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Join Date: Jul 2007
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Give the goats something else. I'll PM you my address to help you get rid of all that excess Hershey's chocolate.
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05/30/08, 06:52 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: central pennsylvania
Posts: 33
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Thanks for all the replies. Ha and Ernie, I don't think you'd wanna eat it, it's all grounded up, so itd be like eating cocoa powder or something.
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05/30/08, 07:04 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: Verndale MN
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You could get a sample of the chocolate and have it analyzed for feed value by a DHIA lab or university vet lab. These test are pretty cheap- under $20, usually. This will give you a breakdown of what nutrients are in there. Once you have the analysis, a dairy nutritionist at the same place should be able to give a recommendation.
The feed "bible", Morrison's "Feeds and Feeding", condemns cocoa meal (ground cacao hulls) as a feed, mostly because of the theobromine and caffeine. Chocolate, however, may have a completely different composition, especially the Hershey milk chocolate.
A side note-dark chocolate, like baker's chocolate, is quite toxic to dogs. Fudge and milk chocolate are more diluted and much less likely to cause problems.
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05/30/08, 09:07 PM
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Enabler!
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: CO
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I have been to Hershey a few times and I am glad I do not live close to there. Heck I don't care if it is ground up I would toss it in the microwave for a few seconds and eat melted chocolate, probably gain 10 pounds too, lol.
My dogs have eaten chocolate so many times it should have killed them. One bottle baby goat discovered that he could reach the kitchen counter and while I was heating his bottle found he loved chocolate cake. None of it was dark chocolate as I do not like it.
River I disagree they have found Antioxidents in chocolate, the darker the better and have found it is in fact benefical. And the other benefit is that I happen to like it so it can make me feel better and not rip people's faces off at certain times of the month.
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05/30/08, 09:12 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: South Dakota
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hmmmm...Maybe Gretta could use some chocolate to stop being such a bully
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