Today I tried giving my 4 does COWP via top dressing on grain and molasses. It turns out that they don't like the clumps of molasses! Maybe I put too much on the grain, but I wanted to make sure the COWP stuck. Anyway, only 1 of my 4 does ate it up (unfortunately it was the does who needs it the least!). The other 3 left half of the molasses+grain+COWP untouched. The I tried chopping up an apple and mixing that in to the left overs - no luck, they picked out the apple and left the sticky grain/molasses.
My question is, I have no idea how much COWP they actually consumed. Tomorrow should I try again by mixing the COWP with something else, or is this risking overdose? I dosed at 1gram/20pounds of body weight, so 3 does got 3 gram and my little tubby doe got 4 grams. I saved the bowls with the left overs from the 3 girls. Should I just try giving the left overs again in the morning when they are hungry?
Replies
I also did what Deborah said with the bits of grain and COWP and it worked well. I have three older girls who love peanut butter or honey right off the spoon and they are really easy to give anything. Just mix in the peanut butter and down it goes. I have a girl who broke her leg very badly when she was little and it now has arthritis in it. She holds it up when the weather changes or is cold. I tried Molly's arthritis herb mix and it seems to be working well - she has her peanut butter balls every night -with the herb mix.
LOL this exact thing happened to me this last time! One of my does loved the molasses, the others turned their noses up. I ended up wasting some COWP but when I did what Deborah said, I got it all down them. I put it into a small white bowl I had because I could see what was left and then gave it to them one at a time so I could monitor the consumption.
Thanks Deborah! Makes total sense. This morning I took the leftovers and mixed in some plain old oats to dry up the mix and spread it out. Then I gave it to the girls. It helped that it was first thing in the morning and they were hungry. I had to add a little more grain to one to make sure she licked up the last bits, but it worked like a charm as you said. Thanks for the help. Next time I'll skip the molasses and just top dress on a bit of their regular grain.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
When I do this, I only use goat feed and top dress it. You don't have to worry about the COWP sticking to anything. Whatever they don't eat will fall to the bottom of the bowl, and you just sprinkle a tiny bit of grain on it -- like 5 kernels -- and the goats lick it up. When it is such a small amount, most of them can't pick it up with their mouth. If they want the grain, they have to lick it up, and when they do that, the COWP sticks to their tongue. I just did COWP here on Nov. 1, and one goat with so talented at avoiding the COWP that I had to sprinkle grain on it six or seven times, but she eventually got it all licked off the bottom of the bowl. Maybe it should called bottom dressing? :) In your situation, I would use the same leftovers and add more grain to the mix. If your goats have never eaten molasses before, it's not a surprise that most of them didn't like it. They are usually not too excited about change. I tried using honey on a graham cracker one time, and that was one big sticky mess.