Knowing how much grain you’re feeding your animals is important but most people really do not know. Figuring this out is easy and all you need is your favorite ‘scoop’ or ‘cup’ and a scale. For our hogs, we simply use the large tin coffee cans that are 5 pounds filled with pellets. Easy enough. However, for our goats, we must be more careful so we use smaller and more accurate measurements.

For the goats we use a 1.5 cup, 2.0 cup and a 4.0 cup for measuring grain. Chinese soup containers are great for this. After taring each cup, we filled it up with our goat feed (Blue Seal Caprine Challenger).

• 1.5 cups = 0.4 lbs (heaped up is 0.5 lbs)
• 2.0 cups = 0.7 lbs (heaped up is 0.8 lbs)
• 4.0 cups = 1.4 lbs (heaped up is 1.5 lbs)

We’re trying a new product this year! This product is to ensure our pregnant does have a constant rich energy supply during their last 8 weeks of gestation.

The Kent/Blue Seal product called EnergiLass is a hard molasses/protein/vitamin/mineral substance. It does NOT have added salt as an inhibitor so they can lick as much as they need. I just put it out a week ago and have noticed (watching the camera a lot) that, so far, only two of the goats are spending a lot of time licking it (Ashara & Tzuriel).

NOTE that we also feed grain twice daily (1.0 lb each) and they have orchard grass at night in each of their stalls and Sericea Lespedeza round-bale in the pasture during the day. They also have loose minerals, kelp, and copper sulfate free choice. We will slowly increase their grain ration during the last 4 weeks of gestation up to 2-3 lbs each depending on how large their baby belly grows (indicative of multiple kids). In the last 2-3 weeks of gestation, we will also be adding alfalfa pellets to their diet for additional calcium.

Read the entire AWESOME article —–> Goat Pasture Management

PARASITE RESISTANCE Is here!! Please take steps now to slow the resistance cycle! Non-chemical control methods must be included!

We currently are utilizing a few of the methods:

• Dry-lot (no grazing, only forest area)
• smart drenching – only drenching goats with high worm loads utilizing McMaster FEC (fecal egg counts)
• rotating pastures for parasite control

NOTE: Pasture Rotation is NOT the same as “Rotating Pastures for Parasite Control”.

Pasture Rotation – getting the most consumption/better forage growth from the land by rotating pastures every 1-7 days and allowing each section to rest/grow for 30 days before allowing grazing back onto the land. This will actually increase internal parasite loads!! Except in the most arid or cold states, at only 30 days, the larvae are primed and ready to be ingested and start their long life cycle inside your goat.

Rotating Pastures for Parasite control – This is rotating pastures leaving it fallow for 8-12 months thereby allowing all internal parasite eggs/larvae to die off before allowing the same species back onto the land.

We do not have enough pasture to rotate for ‘parasite control’ nor do we have cows or horses to rotate behind the goats to ‘vacuum’; so instead we ‘dry lot’ our goats. They are fenced in approximately 1.5 acres of woods and fed hay off the ground year round. We began the dry lot method in 2017 when their internal parasite load was high and becoming difficult to manage (numbers bounced back a month after deworming). Removing their access to the pasture has helped tremendously to break the life-cycle of the worms and we can now manage them more easily. We check their fecals and only deworm if needed. A follow up fecal is also done to ensure that specific dewormer was still effective.