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Post by manygoatsnmore on Apr 12, 2015 8:25:27 GMT
Were your bucklings all big and doelings tiny? I had that happen one year when I was goat newbie, and it was connected to mineral imbalances. I wish I could recall exactly what it was - selenium, copper?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2015 17:12:02 GMT
Sorry, Redfish, I posted a response but it apparently didn't show for some reason.
I feed grass or grass mixed with alfalfa hay, sprouted oats, BOS and alfalfa pellets for feed. They had a lot of browse in the summer. The first doe with quads was darn near emaciated after she kidded and I was pretty shocked because she was always a good eater. I don't think she'd have survived if she had eaten any less.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 12, 2015 17:17:52 GMT
Were your bucklings all big and doelings tiny? I had that happen one year when I was goat newbie, and it was connected to mineral imbalances. I wish I could recall exactly what it was - selenium, copper? Well, the first set were quads and all but one was huge. Both twins from the second doe were Really big and they were both bucks. I'm sorry to say that the day was so bad and hectic that in the end, I never even checked the genders on two of the quads. The small one was a doeling, though. I was having issues trying to get a mineral supplement that I liked. I have to copper bolus them every 4 months. It's very deficient here and we have really high sulfur/iron water. Even my sheep exhibited signs of copper deficiency. Another person local to here had an oversized buck born to their doe as well. I'd be really interested to know if copper is somehow involved.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2015 1:01:46 GMT
Our hay source was upsettingly inconsistent. We don't have a lot of options for where to get it and this place at least never had mold in it (we had to throw away a lot of hay before finding this guy). He advertised it as grass/alfalfa mix, however it was , in reality, "whatever" hay. It was always a surprise. Sometimes tons of alfalfa, sometimes not a scrap. We got a bale that ended up being nearly pure alfalfa in the center during the last 3 weeks of the does' gestation and I do wonder if that was a factor.
As for grain, they never really got a lot of that so my two first guesses are surprise alfalfa or a mineral issue. On a side note, our first lambs were pretty darn good sized for twins too.
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