I have to rave...and thank Deborah:
I was struggled with my new neglected doe who was anemic among other things, and after several weeks of Red Cell her color was still pitiful. So Deborah suggested black strap molasses.
Side note first: my other doe, the pitiful one's twin sister, has been various stages of chronic anemia since I have had her (1 yr or so). I have tried EVERYTHING and the most success I ever had was somewhere between dangerous and borderline on the FAMACHA chart. I had basically resigned myself to the fact that this goat would always be wimpy but she was bright otherwise, fat and milking great and a verys successful mom. (she had B vitamin shots from the vet, tons of red cell, copper boluses, dewormers...and still her color was sad)
This morning both Penny and Annie, the sisters, were bright pink!!! Almost as healthy looking as my hardy mixed breeds! I have never had color like this on Penny! The best part is that they like it so much all I have to do is hold out the syringe and they will grab it in their mouth and then I squirt it to them. Red Cell required wrestling and force feeding.
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More about types of molasses: we had regular in the cupboard (not unsulphured blackstrap) and I checked the iron content before I ordered the other stuff to be sure I couldn't just use that. It is much lower. I don't know what the difference in processing is but just get the unsulphured blackstrap because that's where the good stuff is.
Here is Deborah's response for dosing from another thread:
"According to my bottle of blackstrap molasses, a tablespoon has 70% of the iron a person needs in a day, and I know goats are not the same, but it gave me a starting point. An ounce is 30 cc, and 2 tablespoons is an ounce, so 15 cc is a tablespoon. Anyway, I think I gave her 10 cc twice a day, which I figured was about 100% of the iron a person needs, so should be a decent supplement for a goat. It is also pure sugar, so it's a good source of calories for an animal that is underweight."
Margaret: look for unsulphered blackstrap molasses. Other types are not as good, nutritionally. I will go find Deborah's response to me about dosage and cut and paste it here for you.
I just bought mine off Amazon.com (I order everything because we live out in the middle of nowhere and whatever bit of shipping I have to pay is probably comparable to gas I'd spend driving around looking for it and I don't lose the day doing that)
Fantastic, I want to keep some on hand, but am a little confused about exactly what to get and where. Are there different kinds of molasses? Or do some bottles just not say black strap? And only say molasses? Can I get an idea of a current good price. We have one place I know of that would probably have it, and it will probably be two prices there so I want to have an idea in case I should shop around? What is the dosage and exactly what are the most common uses? I lost 2 bucklings and a gorgeous purebred boar doeling a few years back that appeared totally fat and fine but were very anemic and the vet said that it was low blood suger. It never made since to me at all. They were about 14 weeks old and weaned and he said they should not be weaned so young but tons of people have them weaned younger than that and they were bottled because of lost damn etc. Anyway, I have always felt so guilty. And I think this would have saved them.