does anyone grow and mix their own grain formula? Everything I read says you need all sorts of chemicals and supplements. Our grandparents didn't do this, does anyone feed just FOOD? In past years I had Nubians and fed them sweet feed, never had a problem, but not really sure if anything was added to it. I am working towards self-suffiency and would like to feed only what I grow, I am also growing 100% organic .
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thanks again for your input. We live on a bend of the Cumberland River called "Salt Lick Bend". Hmm... got to be some salt around here someplace! I have found a few spots where deer dig for salt.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
How fortunate that you got such a great place! Although our pastures are organic, we have to buy hay, and we can only count on rainwater for about eight months a year, although if we have a drought, subtract another couple months.
I don't know anyone who mixes their own grain, so you'll have to figure it out on your own. I tried mixing my own grains about five years ago, and I may be a little foggy on some of this, but here is what I remember. Most corn is high fat, high starch/sugar, and low protein. In my heirloom seed catalogs, I have seen some that claim to have 10-12% protein, so if you can grow those, that would be great. Still, I would have them tested to be sure they really do have that much protein, or at least call the seed company and ask them where they got that info. I think oats are about 10-12% protein, but you should be able to find a chart online that will give you those values. Grains fed to milkers at a rate of 1 pound per 3 pounds of milk produced are 16% protein, so if you can't get up to 16%, you'll have to feed more of it. If they don't get enough protein, they start to look terribly bony, and their production is not good. The thing I remember about soy is that it is not supposed to be fed unless it is roasted. The farmer across the road told me that if my sheep or goats ever got into his soybean field when the beans were ready, they'd blow up and die. (He said that in a concerned voice, not being mean or anything.) Soy is typically the thing they use to get commercial feed up to the 16% protein level, but technically it's a legume, not a grain. I used to get some organic grain from Minnesota (two states away) when we'd go up there, and they put "field peas" in their grain rations.
You might want to look into Redmond salt for livestock. They sell it for people at an insanely high price in grocery stores (like $4-5 a pound or something!), but it is also sold for livestock. It's a red salt, so contains a fair amount of minerals. I'm on a cattle list with a holistic vet, and he says you should not get minerals that use salt as a filler, because animals won't eat it if they don't want the salt. You should have a salt available, but it should be separate. Having said that, I don't know anyone with goats who does that, but it seems like a sensible goal. I don't use Purina minerals because it's 40% salt, which does seem high enough to discourage animals from eating it. I did a side-by-side test with Purina and Sweetlix, and the Sweetlix disappeared completely, while the Purina was hardly touched. Sweetlix is 20% salt.
After my last post, I was talking about this with my family and it occurred to me that goats have never lived wild in Illinois, so there is probably a reason for that. We probably don't have what they need to survive. In the wild, they tend to live in mountains, and my daughter once read that when mountain goats find a mineral deposit in the rocks, some will fight to the death to keep another goat away from it. So, using something like the Redmond salt makes even more sense if you're trying to duplicate the optimum natural environment. It comes from the mountains in Utah.
Sonya Jackson said:
Still researching the particulars of mineral deficiencies in my area, but I am very fortunate to have purchased this farm when it had already been certified organic (before that it had been unused for decades). I am also fortunate enought to have enough land to allow goats to do what they do best-browse. Ground water here is contaminated with sulphur, but we use cistern water for ourselves and our animals, so again not a problem(we're over 50 miles from ANYTHING, let alone a coal plant). I guess my basic question is although grain is not a natural food for goats, what have people found to be the best combination? And, what if any problems are associated with a particular grain? Corn is an obvious choice, oats and barley too. I'm thinking Kamut also. Of course these would all be heirloom varieties. My (gut?) feeling is soy would be no better for my goats than it is for me. Kelp while not available here, is still pretty easy to buy in bulk quantities (I eat it too). Salt used to be currency in some parts of the world so I'll think along those lines. I'm still researching the copper issue,I really don't know if it is naturally occuring in my soil. Any ideas along that line would be appreciated! Thanks for your input.
Deborah Niemann-Boehle said:
Hey. I am so glad you joined. This is a great and helpful group! I am so glad that my kids are going to your farm. Tammy
I know where you're coming from, because I started on the self-sufficiency journey almost nine years ago, and I was constantly asking what people did 100 years ago or what do goats do in the wild. I've tried a lot of different things, and I've finally reached some interesting conclusions. Even though we THINK we are raising our animals as naturally as possible, it really is impossible.
First, goats in the wild migrate. If they are in an area that is deficient in copper or selenium or anything else, they would either move on or stay there and die. Most hay and grains today are grown on land that is nutritionally deficient. Even if you are growing organically, it is unlikely that the land was used organically before, so it could take years for you to build it up. There was a great article in Grass Stockman a month or two ago about the wisdom of feeding your pasture rather than your animals. Of course, you do have to supplement the animals while you are getting the pasture up to optimum nutrition.
Second, I have horrible well water. It is very high in sulfur, which binds with copper and created a deficiency. Goats in the wild -- or even great grandma's goats in the 1800s -- would not have been drinking water from 100 feet below the surface of the earth. So, I have to compensate for that. Also, after having goats die from copper deficiency, I did a lot of reading on it and interviewed professors and researchers, and a prof at Texas A & M who has studied goat nutrition said that if you live within 50 miles of a coal-fired power plant, sulfur in the emissions from the plant will settle on your pasture, and then your goats are consuming an abundance of sulfur and can become copper deficient. That is something that was not historically a problem either. And who knows what else in our modern lives is causing problems for our animals?
So, each one of us has to become our goat's nutritionist and learn the signs and symptoms of deficiencies and toxicity. There is no way of knowing what was in sweet feed that you fed years ago. Dumor Goat Sweet Feed is very good, but there are some generic sweet feeds that have little more than molasses sprayed on them. And as for whether the goats did well on it or not, that is even hard to judge. My problems with copper deficiency were building for five years before I figured it out -- mostly because vets kept telling me it was impossible. But now that I've taken care of that problem, stuff that I thought was "normal" doesn't happen anymore. Fertility is higher, birth rate is higher, milk production is higher, morbidity it lower, and mortality is lower.
So, to answer your original question -- I don't think it is possible in today's world to just feed plain food and expect goats to be productive, although they might survive. I've read the work of the most prominent grass farmers and holistic vets in the country, and they all use or recommend supplementing with minerals and/or kelp (which is not exactly natural if you're in the middle of the US) and/or something else. The seriously serious farmers use what they call cafeteria-style minerals, where they have 14 different containers out and let the animals choose exactly what they want. Each one has a different individual mineral in it. If you are really interested in this topic, I'd suggest subscribing to Grass Stockman. It's very informative.