I am trying to figure out a good ration for them.....I'd rather not have to spend hours mixing up feeds

I looked into having the mill mix up a ration for me, but they have a 10 ton minimun :(

I found a dealer who will order Purina Goat Chow for me at $9 a bag.

Right now, I can get Corn/Oats/Barley with molasses for $4.29 a bag and my goats love it. They have always been totally uninterested in plain grains. I am also feeding them Black Oil sunflower seeds, and alfalfa pellets (15% min protein) They get free choice timothy hay.

I was thinking about adding a handful of calf manna? Or should I bother?

Or should I forget all this stuff, and just feed the plain old Goat chow?

Thanks!

Tracy

-- Tracy (zebella@mindspring.com), February 27, 2002

Answers

Forgot to add, the calf starter was a failure...they wouldn't touch the stuff :( Of course they won't eat the COB from that mill either....

Tracy

-- Tracy (zebella@mindspring.com), February 27, 2002.

Will they eat the wet cob? The Corn/oats/barley and mollassas for 4.29$? It will be very high in percentage of mallassas but cutting it with your BOSS and alfalfa pellets would bring that down, while increasing your fat, fiber and protien, with BOSS 14% and alfalfa pellets usually 17%. This should be a good all around feed, the calcium to phosphurus should be about 2 to 1 as long as they are eating the alfalfa pellets. You may want to up the protein with calf manna for your young growing stock. The little box that comes in calf manna (Manna Pro) is enough for 4 goats. There are tons of knock offs of calf manna, even Purina's Annimax is cheaper than this name brand, cheapest in our area is Wendlands Nutritional Supplement. Just because Purina is 9$ a bag, nearly 10 bucks here, doesn't make it better! It is to high in oats, to high in molassas and not high enough in copper, they also sell the chow for the use in bucks with no ammonium chloride added, and you are paying 10$ a bag, for no probiotics or yeast cultures, or bicarbonate in it, something any good grain mix would have in it automatically. They are coming out with a supposed "goat mineral" I will be curious what exactly they will put it in. Make sure and make all changes to your management slowly. And keep your loose minerals and baking soda out while you do make changes. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), February 27, 2002.