Birthweight affected by gestation feeding?

I just feed by body condition. Birthweight seems to be more a factor of how many kids for me.

 

I find that it does. Feeding a 16-18% lactator pellet pre-kidding and I had kids in the 7-9# range. Feeding a minimal amount of 10-12% grain mix, I had kids in the 5-7# range.

I always feed free choice alfalfa hay to pregnant and lactating does. Milk fever is a real issue. I noticed you feed grass hay... do you also feed alfalfa pellets?

 

For me, genetics has been the main determination of kid size, then the size of the dam and how many kids she is carrying. But I guess I do tend to feed the same every year. My toggenburg always wants to have huge kids, whether a single or triplets they always seem to be the same size! And then I have one nubian buck that throws tiny kids, 5-6 lbs. I am going to breed him to my Togg and see if that will give her smaller kids... Otherwise, my kids are usually 6 or 7 lbs, maybe 8 from time to time. I start lead feeding about 30-40 days out, starting with a handful of oats and working up to how much I want them to be eating when they freshen by the time they do. Mine get alfalfa year round. I don't like to feed it straight though, I feed grass hay/browse too.

 

I feed free choice alfalfa the entire gestation - doing so will *prevent* milk fever, providing your doe with all the calcium she needs. Pulling the alfalfa in late gestation will force her to pull out her reserve calcium from her bones for the kids - not good - and make her more susceptible to milk fever.

Yes, I have found that the amounts of grain fed can over grow your kids if fed too much. If you feed too much - you also run the risk of putting too much weight on your does, heavy does have harder kiddings in general. Over all I go by what the girls look like condition wise and base the amount I feed on whatever more or less conditioning they need.


More on preventing milk fever from the 101 section.

https://www.dairygoatinfo.com/f28/hypocalcemia-hypocalcemia-link-between-calcium-phosphorus-sue-reith-16493/

 

The balance of minerals is super complex, and I think a lot of the problems come from that. Sometimes, I think feeding too much calcium in relation to phosphorus can also cause hypocalcemia/milk fever. I learned at the ADGA convention from some of the vets from the Caine teaching center that this area has soils that are phosphorus deficient, so I am trying to look at that a little more in trying to feed my does properly. I haven't had any full blown milk fever issues, but I have had some slight early symptoms treated with CMPK and got better quickly.

 

The calcium/phosphorus does need to be in balance as well as minerals in diet. We keep MFO on hand for milk fever/hypocalcemia. Also, as does are later in pregnancy , they eat smaller amounts throughout the day. Does should be on an accending plane of nutrition during pregnancy . There are many different ways to manage nutrition in your does successfully.

 

MG, could you put your name and location in your siggy line, pleeeease?

Could you explain this imbalance you mentioned? Is it mineral? Have had problems with MF here and I really wish I understood this stuff better. The only thing that has helped is high quality alfalfa hay in late gestation and post kidding.

Where, oh where, is Lee when I need her to explain things to me like a child?? *~* LOL

 

I was thinking that you were here in Indiana. Ok... I don't *understand the chart. *~* Relate? How? I have copper/iron problems. I understand that too much iron inhibits the goats ability to utilize copper. Is this something similar with ca: ph:mg:k?

 

Please Please Please find articles by Sue Reith regarding Milk Fever/Ketosis (which are just another name for Hypocalcemia). You are destined to have one or both with your current feeding program. The only way that you are going to avoid it (at least this year ) is if you have poor milkers. Period.

Your does need closer to 5:1 Calcium/Phosphorus ratio. I don't care what the charts say...those are not for goats!!! Goats produce more milk than cows/body weight, they produce more kids (body weight %) than cows in a much shorter gestation and they have a completely different metabolic system rate than cows. They are NOT small cows.

You can read on here, or on HomesteadingToday.com all of the folks that fed grass hay and grain - perfect recipe for disaster.

Feed alfalfa and a small amount of grain, slowly increasing the grain as gestation comes close to kidding.

 

What are you milking? Breeds? Milk production? Are they still in milk with the grain or dried up?
Boers or dairy goats. Big difference there too, although we feed our Boers alfalfa the last 50 days of their gestation, but then again, our Boers kid with big healthy triplets and quads (4 sets of triplets thus far, 2 sets of quads) and can feed them...milky and productive goats.

Please take my advice to heart - the crash and burn is painful and hard to take if you don't pull up now.

 

Thank you, Camille!

:handclap

 

I still wanna hear more. I feed alfalfa--and still have problems with MF. If there's something to this canion anion? balance that I can *fix*. That's why I askef for Mary to add her name and location. I thought it was her. She's not to far from me and her goats MILK. I can feed exactly like SherrieC, who is even closer, and still have problems. I keep thinking it has something to do with the *imbalance* of minerals that I've been dealing with for years.

 

As someone mentioned, my herds kid size has more to do with number of kids in the litter and genetics.

My does get 2 pounds of 16% pelleted dairy concentrate (Ca is 3:1), mixed grass/weed hay, loose minerals, di-calcium phosphate mixed with the soaked beet pulp and rice bran meal (balanced to a 2:1 Ca ratio) daily from the time they are dried off until they kid. Coming FF's get the same diet. If a doe is on the skinny side I add more beet pulp and concentrate. The feed has never seemed to make any difference in kid size. Never had a problem with metabolic problems in my herd with this diet.

 

I have always fed free choice alfalfa pellets toward the end of pregnancy. The kids tend to be on the big side, but no metabolic issues.