# How much to add to feed?



## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

okay so honestly I am just not all that smart with feed, heh. Like what in the feed is good for what, etc. etc. 
We buy a 15% medicated sweet feed from the feed mill. 
We'll be bringing home a couple of fullblood doelings soon that my kids will show in 4-H, as well as a few percentage doelings that we have.
Would like the best start for them we can afford to give.

I have been planning to get: Beet pulp, BOSS and Animax <same thing as calf manna>, and mix it with the feed in a seperate trash can for the 4-H kids and a couple of young adults I am trying to get weight on.

I just don't know how much I should be adding of each item to make it worth it. I don't think I was giving enough in the past, or possibly giving too much of one thing and not enough of the other to make it as effective.

I don't feed alfalfa hay, but plan on getting some before we bring the new girls home. We do give a little alfalfa in the creep feeder - my husband works on a horse farm, and anything that falls out of the bales that would be thrown out, he brings home for the babies & they love it, I mix a little with their clover hay.

We feed loose mineral not sure if the kids are using it or not.

Anyway, I always always appreciate everyone's opinions, and help here, without you all I'd probably have gone crazy!


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## liz (Oct 5, 2007)

I feed a 18% sweet goat feed and mix 10lbs calf manna, 10lbs BOSS to 50# of feed...not sure on the beet pulp.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Thanks Liz! I'll try that and see what happens, and see if anyone else has an idea on adding in the Beet Pulp.
I want to start getting things ready, won't be long before my son's does are ready to pick up, and want to slowly get them switched to what we'll be feeding. 
I wish I had access to a higher % grain, but all we can find locally for goats is 15 & 16%. I don't know any other way to do it, I just don't know enough about this. It's easy to find info on horses, but goats? heh.


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## Natural Beauty Farm (Mar 18, 2011)

OK sit down with all the feed labels and a calculator.

Add the protein, fat, and fiber, that is for 1lb of each, now just adjust each up and down until you get the numbers you want

Here we want 
16% protein
5% fat
14% fiber
In that order, I'd say you were pretty close with your choices.

...oh and beet pulp shreds has to be weighed, a scoop is not equal to a scoop of pellets, we feed as much as 25% by volume of it sometimes.


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## Petersfamilyfarms (Jan 15, 2012)

I'm interested on this subject as well... stalking the answers


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Natural Beauty Farm said:


> OK sit down with all the feed labels and a calculator.
> 
> Add the protein, fat, and fiber, that is for 1lb of each, now just adjust each up and down until you get the numbers you want
> 
> ...


Thanks! I'll pull a label and try to figure this up tomorrow. I can find out the info on the animax tomorrow as well I know it could really benefit the young kids.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Okay so i haven't had a chance to do this primarily because I don't have the other stuff, but I am hoping to at least pick up about 5lbs of animax to start with so I can slowly introduce it. Beet pulp may have to wait until the end of the month, BUT I want to introduce one thing at a time.

Next question is, we brought home 2, 3 1/2 month old boer does on Sunday. They were getting pelleted feed, but we didn't bring any home. I do have alfalfa pellets which is similar to what they were fed, so I put that on one side of each of their feeders and our 15% medicated sweet feed on the other side of each feeder. They LOVE the alfalfa pellets, and eat most of the grain but not the 'crumbs.'

Any idea how much alfalfa pellets? Should I just give it free choice? They get a good clover hay that they LOVE <they didn't get hay where they were at, but were on creep feed>.

We need to build the one up, she's really small <has lice>, the other one just needs a little weight added to fill her out.

I'm not real concerned with our three percentage girls, they are growing pretty well, and finally got the oldest to start eating grain not long ago. Right now the 3 doelings are eating about a lb. of 15% medicated grain a day along with a little hay, they graze/browse with mamas and nursing. I introduced alfalfa pellets but they put their noses up at it lol SO I was thinking the animax might be something try to add some protein since it's only 15% feed.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Okay so today we started to change our feed. We are switching from the sweet feed to a closer feed mill's goat feed.

It's called Goat Developer 16
Medicated with Decoquinate.
Crude Protein 16.0%
Crude Fat <MIN> 3.0%
Crude Fiber <MAX> 10.0%
Calcium <MIN> 0.9%
Calcium <MAX> 1.4%
Phosphorus <MIN> 0.5%
Salt <MIN> 0.5%
Salt <MAX> 0.75%
Selenium<MIN> 0.3PPM
Vitamin A <MIN> 10,000 IU/LB

We have 5 doelings from 7 weeks to 3 1/2 months old I am guessing the oldest weighs around 60lbs, smallest is 37lbs.

If you were going to add Animax:

http://www.chinworld.com/sitemap/prods/CW010008.html

How much would you add per 50lbs bag of pelleted feed?

Just curious, I am lousy trying to figure this out 

BTW, the 3 youngest are still on their mama's and we don't plan to wean them any time soon.


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