countrytalkandtips.myfreeforum.org

Rebecca

Wondered if anybody has a source they could point me towards for goat licks, if there is such a thing? Here in Eire there are only sheep licks I've found so far, I went to buy one today, explaining it was for goats and shouldnt contain copper (thats right isn't it?). He said it didn't, just checking the label now at home, it contains copper!
Its Nutribio for Sheep.
Do goats need a mineral lick? They have open access to pasture, I bring them tree branches every day, and their concentrate is specifically for goats.

And on a tangent, what are other goat owners feelings on milking a doe with kids? One of my girls has only one kid, 3 weeks old, I wondered if it would be ok to milk her once a day, she seems to have a lot of milk. My other doe has 2 kids, 2 months old. I've read about taking kids away at night and milking in the morning before bringing back the kids ... in that case would the goat have enough milk for her kids, how much would one take, and is this fair!

Thanks for any thoughts and advice.

_________________
Relocation to the sticks.
Moving smoothly from one crisis to the next on our rural Irish smallholding www.sallygardens.typepad.com
Sustainable Living bookshop, forum and courses
eBooklets ; pigs, goats

Jack · Joined: 04 Mar 2007 Posts: 71 Location: North Otago

Gidday

Well I believe that unless you have absolutely brilliant soil all animals will need extra trace ellements in their diet.

But sorry I cannot help you as to what you should use because your conditions up there will be totally different to ours.
_________________
Cheers
Jack
QBE

chook · Joined: 14 Mar 2007 Posts: 305 Location: North Clare

Hi Rebecca,
I have also been unsuccessful in trying to find mineral licks for goats. I now use seaweed meal (Arramara). I'm lucky in that one of the distributors regularly holidays nearby and drops me a couple bags when I need them.
I add the seaweed meal to the goats' daily grain treat and they love it.
Giving them branches to munch and peal is also good for minerals.

As to milking: There are many different systems, anything from taking the kids away right after they had their colostrum and feeding them milk replacer to leaving them to suckle full time until the mothers wean them and not milking the dams at all. After a good bit of reading we settled on leaving the kids full time with their dams for the first 4 weeks (only milking the dams if, say, a kid only suckled one tit, or if a kid died and there was too much milk). After that we lock the kids at night and take the morning milk ourselves and leave the kids with the dams for the rest of the day. This continues until the kids are butchered, sold, or weaned. We find that it's a good compromise. At one month the kids already eat quite bit of hay/grass and they don't seem to suffer any setback from being deprived of some of the milk. So if your dam is in good nick and produces more milk than the kid can polish off anyway there is no reason why you should not milk her. Milk production is basically based on supply and demand. If it's not used one day, less will be produced thereafter. So milking the extra milk out now will also help keep up production for later in the year.

HTH
chook

wayland · Joined: 14 Dec 2006 Posts: 1164 Location: Campile. Wexford

I am very much on a learning curve with goats, but I am told that it is better for milk production and udder conformation to ensure that the Dam is milked out each day. This ensures that her udder develops evenly. If the kid is left to it there is a tendancy for it to feed mainly off one side. This leads to reduced milk being produced from one teat and so the udder devoleps lop sided. The advice that I am given is to take all the evening milk for the house and let the kid have hay and water. Then in the morning the kid can be put to the dam. I hope this makes some sort of scence. Confused

_________________
Leave not a trace.

Camile · Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 9:16 pm Post subject:

Hello,

I didn't know about the copper thing .. but I have a mineral buckett for sheep available to the goat/sheep in the field ..

I see them from time to time, but very rarely going for it ..

It's been a long while now that it's in the field, and they are all fine .. goats are so similar to sheep that I would think that the same bucket should do the trick.

But again I'm not milking the billy ! so the difference might come from there !

Camile