Feed: Dairy/Boer

[farmmaid]

We are feeding our goats Meat Goat Grow and Finish DC. We are going to be weaning and I want to start milking. The tag on the feed says "Do not feed to goats producing milk for food". No problem, we can slowly change her over but what is the time line? When she gets all off the current feed and onto the dairy ration how soon can we use the milk for us?...Joan

[animal_kingdom]

What's in the feed that wouldn't be in your dairy feed?


The longest withdrawl for any purpose usually is 30 days there about. That's a pretty safe time frame. I'm thinking whatever is in your feed may alter the milk flavor. Does it have some kind of withdrawl period for slaughter?

[debitaber]

use the withdrawl time for slaughter on the package, and I always add two weeks. just to be safe, and if it has an antibotic, I add 30 days, because we have people allergic to med's here. so that is what I do to be safe.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

Most milk withdrawal times are bogus. We wish that all these drugs would go into the milk, treat the kids at the same time as they nurse. And boy don't we all wish when we have had to use antibiotics for mastitis, that those long milk withdrawal times we all heed meant that the drug even worked on mastitis, because most don't. And if it can't get into the udder to cure mastitis, how can it be in the milk?

Deccox is a pretty benign drug in your goats feed. I know when we fed lasalocid that a good size good milker would have to eat 5 pounds of the grain to even have a blood level found in her milk, and then it was minimal. Once you have slowly switched her over I would wait about 48 hours. Read the bag, most are dosed at 1 pound of grain for every 30 or 50 pounds of body weight. Once you stop feeding her that amount (and most don't feed near what they are supposed to, to even have her bloodlevel up) the amount of drug in her system wouldn't be even detectable! A poorer milker would have drugs in her system longer than a good milker. Vicki