Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Posted: Thu Jun 19, 2008 8:25 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
Ang,
I think I read in another thread that one of your dogs killed a goat. Was it your goats or someone elses (now I'm second guessing myself. It was late when I read that...)?
If it was yours, I just wanted to say sorry to hear about that. My boxer mix obsesses over the babies, but doesn't seem interested in the adult goats, so I worry constantly and keep a very close eye on him. Was it one of the smaller ones? or one of your nubians? I know, it doesn't matter and I'm sure you're heartbroken about it. Just wanted to send you a virtual hug.
I hope everything is going well with the rest of the goats.
(and, btw, if it was someone else's goats and not Ang's, then the condolences go to you too.... sorry I have sometimer's and can't remember what I read sometimes )
Everyone here is doing well for the moment. All the babies are growing nicely and my new little herd sire is growing like a weed, too. These days it's just maintenance with the goats, milking, bottle feeding (two of the six babies) and keeping up with feet, shots, etc... they do keep me busy even with just the maintenance stuff, though.
I honestly don't know how people do it who have large numbers of goats. I have four adults and six babies now and that's about all I can handle.
K
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 6:15 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
My human kids are harassing me otherwise I'd read the whole thread before asking. Has sustainable feeding been covered in this thread? It seems that every book I read indicates that a portion of goat diet needs to come from commercial pellets and I want to know what alternatives exist.
Thanks _________________ ~Laura
"If you weren't smart enough to plan ahead then Doom on you!" ~Dodo bird
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 6:37 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
Quote:
Has sustainable feeding been covered in this thread?
Not really, no. Not in any depth, rather. I don't feed pellets, though. My girls get a grain mixture of mostly oats and black oil sunflower seeds. I do throw in a bit of chopped corn and a little bit of Calf Manna (which I guess is a pellet, but it's such a small amount that it could be left out. I just add it because it includes anise oil and it smells good lol)
I also feed alfalfa pellets, but that's because we cannot get good quality alfalfa hay around here. For meat goats, such a rich diet isn't absolutely necessary - they can do much better on browse and hay alone. Dairy goats have much a much higher calcium requirement, hence the alfalfa. Eventually I hope to be able to plant a field of alfalfa so we can harvest our own hay. Other good alternatives include any type of legume hay - peanut hay has been used with good success.
On a goat forum I participate in, this has been discussed some, but it hasn't been covered as much as I would like. If you have any ideas, I'd be open to hearing them myself. From what I know, it's more important that the nutrient balance is correct than if you have any one particular nutrient, i.e., calcium. If one cannot get grain at all, you can raise goats without it, but milk prodcution will suffer.
Kathy
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 7:36 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
Thanks for the reply
I managed to get thru page 9 of this thread and there's a lot of good info and gorgeous goats in here!
I like the idea of giving them legume hay. I intend to increase my bean production and it seems that the spent bean plants give a tremendous ammt of material. I just compost it now, but if it makes good goat food I don't think the compost will suffer. _________________ ~Laura
"If you weren't smart enough to plan ahead then Doom on you!" ~Dodo bird
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 1:16 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
And the goats do love the bean plants, too. I always pull up my green bean plants after I'm done with them and feed them to the goats. They eat them up. They also love corn stalks. I think there's a lot from the garden you could feed goats that would give them a varied diet and meet a lot of their nutritional requirements. The only thing that worries me with my dairy girls is their calcium requirements. I don't know what else has as much calcium as alfalfa.
K
Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 5:03 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
Ok so I did some searching around. Alfalfa has .9-1.5% calcium. For 100g of alfalfa that's 1g of calcium.
Comparable foods, ironically from this vegan website: http://www.soystache.com/calcium.htm nothing is comparable except sesame seeds. Can you imagine a goat eating a significant ammt of sesame seeds? Other beans are good sources (I didn't realize that alfalfa is a legume!), I wonder what the bean plant content of calcium is. _________________ ~Laura
"If you weren't smart enough to plan ahead then Doom on you!" ~Dodo bird
Joined: Oct 04, 2004 Posts: 5719 Location: Body in OK, Heart in TX
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:47 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
Okay, this week I will be castrating my first goat. My husband will reluctantly be assisting. I've done reading and watched videos of the various methods, and am planning to use bands. I have a burdizzo, and the quickness of that method seems more humane to me, but the goats in the videos I've seen of banding don't usually even make a peep, while the ones with the burdizzo scream, and sometimes bleed.
I'll probably be doing this Sunday afternoon, but I may do it tomorrow if I get home early enough. Anyone who has tried both methods want to offer any suggestions?
We might even take a video, if I can dig up the tripod. _________________ "Every junkie's like a setting sun..." - Neil Young
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 13191 Location: naive idiot fantasy world
Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 7:55 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
We used banding on our ram lamb, when he was about three weeks old. We tried earlier but his testicles had not moved down into the scrotum enough to catch them below the band. He walked funny for a couple days, but didn't seem in distress.
We had to have surgery on the ram lambs we bought from the breeder, because they were fully mature when we wethered them. _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow." - jboogy
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 4:48 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
Mominator wrote:
Ok so I did some searching around. Alfalfa has .9-1.5% calcium. For 100g of alfalfa that's 1g of calcium.
Comparable foods, ironically from this vegan website: http://www.soystache.com/calcium.htm nothing is comparable except sesame seeds. Can you imagine a goat eating a significant ammt of sesame seeds? Other beans are good sources (I didn't realize that alfalfa is a legume!), I wonder what the bean plant content of calcium is.
Mmm... Tehina and Halva...
Well I suppose you could mix the sesame in with the fodder and give it a try...
Maybe a sesame peanut butter mix (expensive)...or sesame with some veggie oil to fatten the sheep /goats up?
Another question is how much elemental calcium do goats get by eating the dirt that goes along with the pasture??
Maybe nature provides? _________________ With Love to all, and Malice to none.
"A people is conquered not when they lose a war, but when they adopt the song and customs of the enemy"
-Chacham S
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:02 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
Shannymara wrote:
Okay, this week I will be castrating my first goat. My husband will reluctantly be assisting. I've done reading and watched videos of the various methods, and am planning to use bands. I have a burdizzo, and the quickness of that method seems more humane to me, but the goats in the videos I've seen of banding don't usually even make a peep, while the ones with the burdizzo scream, and sometimes bleed.
I'll probably be doing this Sunday afternoon, but I may do it tomorrow if I get home early enough. Anyone who has tried both methods want to offer any suggestions?
We might even take a video, if I can dig up the tripod.
Our way is to just eat the poor sucker before that....
Males = Food
Females = Wealth _________________ With Love to all, and Malice to none.
"A people is conquered not when they lose a war, but when they adopt the song and customs of the enemy"
-Chacham S
Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:32 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production - Goats & Sheep
If, like us, you have any tendency towards procrastination, remember that male goats can breed as early as 3 months old (ours are generally closer to 6 months). We castrate males that we don't want to breed with---just in case! There's something so depressing about a not-good-enough-to-breed male turning around and breeding his mother! That happened with our sheep a couple of years ago, and the ram lamb that resulted was (and is) the runtiest, scrawniest thing. We keep waiting for him to get fat enough to eat, but it looks as though we're going to just have to make stew meat or sausage from him!
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Was it your goats or someone elses (now I'm second guessing myself. It was late when I read that...)?
)
My husband will 
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! What an adventure this is....
