Official SS Goat Thread

[lupinfarm]

Merle the milking stand looks fab! I'm too lazy to work on mine LOL, maybe on Thursday... the only day I seem to have off this week.

You can come over and paint mine then. My mom liked your rainbow and fringe trim idea.

Woot, I'll be right there! Haha I noticed your user photo is your skinny arms photo Workin' hard on that milking stand.

 

[FarmerDenise]

My DSS is 18 and takes woodshop. I won't count on him to make me one though. That would be considered a 4 letter word: "W O R K"

Free, would you recommend I feed these sprouted grains to my 10 day old kids?
I want to try and sprout my grains for the chickens. Gotta get me a buch of buckets first. SO has claimed all the ones we have for his purposes. Even the ones I scrounged up

The kids are doing much better. Their droppings are still a little soft, but at least they are clumped together. The babies got to go outside again today and romp in the grass. They really pip-poped all over the place today. They explored a whole lot too. Our dog keeps wanting to play with them as if they were puppies.
She has been bringing them her ball and dropping it in front of them.
I have increased the amount I feed them this afternoon. They are curled up in their pen right now. All that fresh air and exercise tuckered them out.

 

[freemotion]

FD, I personally would wait a bit. They are a bit young. I'd wait until they are eating hay/grass pretty reliably, as that is what makes their rumen develop and work. When you are thinking about getting ready to wean them off milk, you might introduce a tiny bit, like a few grains, literally. I'm not a big fan of grain being a staple, it is a supplement here, given only if someone truly needs it. Ginger got about a tablespoon in some milk when I couldn't get her to take a bottle. She was about six weeks old by then. She responded really well to it, but she wasn't getting much milk and really needed the protein. But she was a special case, taken from mama at five weeks.

So many on the other forums told me she would either die or be unthrifty. She stopped crying all the time when I added the sprouts, and she grew like a weed, faster and bigger than the charts and graphs.

 

[stano40]

For the sake of all of us that do not sprout grains can someone describe how to properly do it and the benefits.

Thanks

bob/Maine

Hi Bob! I sprout barley, oats when I can't get barley. The reasons I do it are for the improved digestibility, natural probiotics, gets rid of anti-nutrients found in all grains, and increases protein levels, excellent for producing milk or babies, or for growing strong babies during and after weaning. Great for chickens, chicks, and egg production, too. Turkeys like it as well. Wonderful for maintaining older horses in good condition, too!

I have a series of buckets and a sump hole in my basement. I drilled many small holes in the bottom and a couple of inches up the sides of all but one of the buckets. The holes need to be smaller than a grain or the grains will lodge in the holes and block the flow of water.

I fill the undrilled bucket with grain about 3/4 full and fill it with water. I add a glug of whey when I have it, or none if I don't. If I get behind on my soaking, I will add a glug of ACV to speed things up. I do the first soaking for about 24 hours.

Then I dump the grain into one of the drilled buckets and let it drain. Then I flood it with water until the water gets to the top of the bucket, and let that drain. I will rinse this once or twice a day until it I see sprouts just emerging....a small white bump at one end of the grains. This is when I start to feed it. I feed from this pail until it is empty, rinsing it daily as usual. Sometimes it will get roots and a small grass blade. Still wonderful! I always smell the grain before dumping it into feeders, and visually inspect it for mold. It is extremely rare that I have to toss a batch....actually, it has been a long time. I only lost batches in the beginning....sometimes a batch of grain comes in with some dehydrated mold in it that grows when sprouting. If I suspect this, I use the ACV in the first soak, and generously.

Meanwhile, I have started another bucket soaking, then another rinsing/draining. Depending on how many animals are getting grain, I will have two or three pails going at once.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Free, yes that is a help & very informative. I'm assuming the barley & oats you are using is the barley & oat seed itself.

I usually can figure out most abbreviations but I'm at a loss as to what ACV is.

Do you keep the sprouts and the mixtures you are trying to sprout in a cool spot so they don't become spoiled?

bob

 

[FarmerDenise]

ACV is Apple Cider Vinegar. It is best to use organic unfiltered unpasteurized ACV. But we use what we can get

Free, thanks for the post. I have to rely on people who have experience with goats, since I have not even seen a goat raise her young. My experience is with kittens
I always try to do things as naturally as possible. I really wish I could have been around a goat raising her kid at least once. But With the help of people like you, I feel a lot more comfortable raising my little kids.
I can tell you, that I would not be raising baby goats, if it weren't for the helpfull advice I get from people on this forum.

 

[freemotion]

Thanks, FD, but I am not really "experienced" with goats, really! This is what has worked quite well here, and I haven't found anyone else who is doing it. Kstaven sprouts for his dairy cows, but I think he uses a more sophisticated system and sprouts them further.

Bob, I buy whole oats and barley, whichever I can get, from the feed store or from the farmer. Don't buy seed grains, as they are treated with a fungicide. Also, in a wet year, some batches won't sprout because they were harvested wet and put through dryers and may have been overheated. If I get a batch like this, I soak them, and feed a little less.

I keep them in my cellar, and I sprout less or not at all when the weather gets hot. When it is hot, everyone has access to plenty of pasture, so the extra nutrients from the sprouted grain is not really needed. With two goats lactating, though, I may keep it up this summer.

When it gets very warm, I also have to shorten the cycle of the buckets, not letting them sprout as far, feeding them sooner, or they get moldy. I won't feed moldy anything under any circumstances. Sometimes I feed after the 24 hour soak, I just feed less than if they are a week old and quite sprouted.

The seeds seem to have some kind of internal clock, because they sprout much faster in the spring, no matter what the temperature. My cellar is pretty consistant in temperature unless it is extremely hot or cold outside.

 

[stano40]

My daughter bought me 2 pots of day lillies and I went to the fias Co site to check if it were harmful to goats.

When I googled fias co farms a noticed popped up that this site may be harmful to my computer because of malicious malware. Is fias co having problems?

Does anyone have a list of safe and unsafe plants for goats?

Thanks,

bob

PS

Thanks free for the sprouting information I am going to try it as soon as I can find the barley.

 

[freemotion]

You are very welcome, Bob....I just googles Fias Co Farms and didn't get that message. Try again and see what happens. I think they have the best list around.

ETA: I just went back to get the day lily info and I got that warning, too!

 

[stano40]

I still get that same message as well. I wonder if her site got hacked? I depended on that site for the list and she had a lot of good information there especially on birthing which 2 of my does will be doing this late May.

bob

 

[ksalvagno]

Fiasco Farm's website is working again. Last night I couldn't get to it at all either.