# Show boers and vitamin B



## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

I'll try my best to stick to the topic and not write a book 
Our fair is in September. One issue we always have with our animals especially ones going to the fair is they don't eat like they should. Our goat leader is worthless, let's just leave it at that so the kids and I have been gathering information on our own. Any of it right or wrong? Heck if we know but we are going for it!
One thing we did come across was to give vitamin b to encourage eating especially when it's hot. At first I smack my forehead and said duh I know this! But since the kids should be befriending their Goats, shots probably won't go over well.
So I found out about vitamin b paste and was over the moon. But now that I'm getting ready to place a order I need advise here. 
So this is the paste for Goats, what it has in it 








It's $10 a tube, It will basically last one week per goat, between my two kids they are showing 6 breeding does and 2 wethers. That is going to add up FAST!
But they also have this for horses and this is what it has








It is 35ml and each turn is for 100# not sure how many marks it has on it but it is $7. I'm also a little confused on what a dose is, I'm assuming it's per mark/ 100# so if that is correct I could cut the dose (somehow) in half and have it about equal to the goat paste BUT it has all the other stuff in it. It also says to give once a week so I'm not sure on that but would rather something cheaper and that is cheaper. I know you can't really give too much vitamin B but is the other stuff in it low enough that if I ended up giving every day they would be fine.
I also found rooster booster which has just B12 in it and vitamin K. I know I can't kill them with too much K but is the B12 what makes them want to eat more? Or is it both the B1 and B12? 
Basically what would you suggest here? Or if you have any other ideas to make them eat more I'm open to ideas as long as it's not installing AC for them :/ and no that's not a joke that is what a lot of people do!


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

I wouldn't give the horse paste daily.


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## ISmellLikeGoats (Oct 4, 2017)

I know you can overdose on Vitamin A which can do kidney and liver damage. I would probably avoid that product for goats just due to that fact alone.

Why not buy human grade Vit B tablets instead? You can get them in B1 100 mg and B12 in 1000 mcg (get a pill cutter and you have the 500 mcg as the paste). Then just a decent pro-bios paste if you want. What I do for pastes when I'm giving pills is I put the paste in the balling gun and stick the pill in it and give it all at once.

Since the pills come like 100+ to a bottle and you'd use 1 a day (or a half in the case of the B12) x 6 goats, it's going to last (say 6 per day x 30 days = 180 tablets - so 2 bottles a month of B1 and 1 bottle a month of the B12 approx) and the bottles are $10 or less.

If any of that doesn't make sense, feel free to ask and I can math it out for you - that's my job as a (human) pharm tech.

ETA - could also dilute it into a solution if jamming pills sounds sucky and use a drench gun to admin it.


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## GF3 Boer Goats (Sep 25, 2017)

You could make a Vitamin B paste... I'll try to find the recipe.


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Oh that is a fantastic idea! I could probably cut the pills in half and just slip in the grain ??? I was planning on having the kids just mix the paste in with their grain so the pills (assuming they don’t pick around it) should work ok that way too, or do as your suggesting with the probiotics and mix that all in with the grain. Thank you! I never even thought about human pills


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## ISmellLikeGoats (Oct 4, 2017)

If you're going to use pro-bios paste as well and mix in the feed, use a pill crusher and just mix the B vitamins in the paste before you stick it in the feed. It might be bitter, so the pro-bios paste should cover the nasty taste, and they may pick around it if it's just pill form and bitter.
Pill cutters are super cheap, so are the crushers (and a lot easier than trying to mash with a spoon, lol).


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Ok I at go smashing up all the pills first thing and see how that works first. The good thing is right now we are getting ready to wean everyone and it’s still decently cool (80s not 100+) so we can play with it for a little while and see how to give it. I’m just trying to figure out a way to make it easier for the kids since my poor daughter is so tiny. Right now she weighs as much as her wether lol so here soon she can be tossed around pretty easy.......but I guess having me just shove a few pills down them isn’t totally cheating or anything lol


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## Robinsonfarm (Jul 17, 2015)

Our goat mentor just suggested adding Rooster Booster liquid B12 to the feed of a wether that isn't eating like he should be. They top dress all of their kids feed with it and show a lot.

https://smile.amazon.com/Rooster-Bo...id=1526923163&sr=8-2&keywords=rooster+booster


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## Jessica84 (Oct 27, 2011)

Let me know how it does. I wasn’t sure if it was B12 that makes them want to eat more of the B1 or both of them put together. I know TSC carries it so maybe I’ll swing by and grab a bottle of it too and play with it. I’ll stick it on the does feed. Really all they need to do is fill out, the wethers we need to get 10 pounds on them in 3 months which is do able but the kids also put together a “work out” plan for them for muscle so I’m not sure how fast they are really going to gain. Last year we basically shoved food at the wether and crossed our fingers he would make weight since he was so young


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## Robinsonfarm (Jul 17, 2015)

I've got it ordered, I'll let you know. We have one that is not wanting to eat any grain and one that has already made weight and we are going to have to watch that he doesn't get too big. 
Last year we fed Kickin Chicken on their feed, helped with them wanting to eat and made their hair nice and slick.


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## ISmellLikeGoats (Oct 4, 2017)

B1 (Thiamine) is for appetite increase, B12 (Cobalamin) increases energy and improves red blood cell production.

Reading on TN meat goats, they suggested using a swine vitamine pre-mix or show bloom to top dress feed. Rooster Booster is a liquid form of vitamin B - but being that B vitamins are water soluable anyway, making your own liquid pour on (or drench) is not difficult.
Depends on how you're feeding too. If each goat has it's own feeder separated from everyone else and isn't playing "ring around the feeder" a top dress will work much better than if they are in a grow out pen and competing for food - in that case I'd drench their vitamins rather than a pour over.

ETA: Since I have these items at my house, I'll do a trial run on this for the sake of testing on one of my does and see how it goes.


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## Robinsonfarm (Jul 17, 2015)

Do you know the amount of Rooster Booster you can give a goat? Ive just been drizzling a little on his feed and he loves it, he has had a better appatite and more energy but I can't totally attribute it to that alone. Hes been treated for a lot of things recently, and finally making some progress.


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## Robinsonfarm (Jul 17, 2015)

I was just doing some comparison online, there is the Rooster Booster with the yellow label for chickens and the blue label for sheep/goats. They have exact same ingredients, same amount of B12 and same ounces in the bottle, so the exact same thing but the one labled for sheep and goats is $8 more per bottle!! Crazy, so I got the amount to feed off the sheep bottle but we bought the chicken bottle


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## ISmellLikeGoats (Oct 4, 2017)

From what I'm seeing on the labels for Rooster Booster chicken and for sheep and goats, there is no B1 in it.

Aside from the B12, the other ingredients are just water, preservatives (to keep shelf life) xanthan gum (a thickening agent that prevents separation) and saccharin for sweetener plus whatever they are using for color and flavor.

So, the bottle is a pint, 480 cc. At max dosage of 20 cc, that is 24 doses, or 48 at minimum. At $19.29 (Jeffers) that comes out to... $0.80 per dose at max dose, and $0.40 a dose for min. A little cheaper if you buy the bigger bottle.
There are 10,000 mcg/oz of B12. A pint is 16 oz. So 160,000 mcg for the entire bottle of Rooster Booster. One oz is approximately 30 cc so per dose at max dosage they get approximately 500 mcg of B12 - that is equivalent to 1/2 of a human B12 tablet a day.

The entire bottle of human B12 is $9.67 on Amazon - which contains 150 1000 mcg tabs - 150,000 mcg for the whole bottle, but since it's twice the dosage, there are 300 doses per bottle. It's probably cheaper at the grocery store, but used Amazon for an idea on price on a grocery store common brand.
That comes out to $0.03 ($9.67/300) a dose per day to hit the 500 mcg requirement of B12 without all the fluff of preservatives, liquid to dilute, and thickener/separation prevention. You *could* drop half a tab of B12 in 10 CC of regular tap water and it will melt since it's water soluable.

So, if that's TL;DR, it is far cheaper to hit the maximum value of B12 in human grade vitamins than Rooster Booster pre-mix.
It is still cheaper to use B1 in conjunction with B12 human grade, as B1 is not particularly expensive - i think I paid $10 for the bottle on my desk, it has 100x 500 mg tablets, which is 5x a regular dosage, but you can get bottles with less mg/tab. From a quick Amazon look, B1 100 mg tabs are $6.95 on Prime for 100 tabs.

ETA: I just opened the bottle of B1 on my desk and bit into a tablet. It is not horribly bitter tasting, not particularly great, kind of chalky and tastes like fortified vitamin B smells, but you can totally chew them yourself without gagging - so shouldn't take much to cover up the taste.


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## odieclark (Jan 21, 2016)

Great info


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