# Goat Balancer, opinions please



## Cannon_Farms (Aug 28, 2008)

We just started carring a new product for us called goat balancer and it is made by mana pro. It sounds good but Im not too sure if its worth the money. I like it has de in it but i already feed a mineral with AC in it, plus the calcium/phosphous is off on this and protien a bit too high.
I really am looking for a good edge giving product as always to give my kids.
Heres a link, 
http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=f9c4459c-319c-43dd-ab06-2ad6d99e7650

(btw tsc is less on this product)


----------



## hoofinitnorth (Oct 18, 2006)

I pulled up the analysis through this site:

http://www.jefferslivestock.com/ssc/product.asp?CID=2&pf_id=0034156

Click on "View manufacturer and/or label information".



> Goat Balancer
> Manna Pro
> 
> Ingredients:
> ...


I found the manufacturer's link too, but Google had a Malware warning on it so I didn't link that here.

No time to look at it now, will try to look later for you.


----------



## Cannon_Farms (Aug 28, 2008)

I dont reckon no ones tried it, so my goats get to be the test subjects


----------



## Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians (May 6, 2002)

I don't get it really. IF your unhappy with your feeding program than change it. But feeding a soybean meal based product when you can buy soybeanmeal to up protein for alot less money makes no economic sense. If you need to improve fat in the diet use corn both this and BOSS is simply to expensive. If your unhappy with your minerals, change them, don't switch to this to improve minerals.

You would be soo much better off spending your money on more hay than on feeding more fluff. Vicki


----------



## Cannon_Farms (Aug 28, 2008)

They already get all they can eat alfalfa and a grain mixed feed (tiz whiz) but they are not gaining the weight that I would like to see them gain. Just looking for something to put the show edge on their condition to give them that extra sparkle.
We can not get bulk feeds here like soybean meal or barley without buying it by the ton, with only 8 goats thats just not practical for us.


----------



## DQ (Aug 4, 2006)

I don't think there is some magic bullet for gaining weight. they have been pawning this stuff off on horse people forever. the protein is not too high for a supplement. there is nothing in there that i can see that is that much different then most regular feedstuffs. the idea is to have an adequate amount of protein in the diet as whole. if they are already getting all the alfalfa they can eat I doubt they have a shortage of protein in their diet and adding more is a waste of moneu. in my opinion the de is fluff. once it is wet it doesn't do anything. they just put it in there because it is one of the current natural buzz items. it has some probios which I guess is nice but a healthy goat should be producing all that stuff itself. 

what kind of cocci prevention have you been practicing. I saw a dramatic improvement in weight gain when I switched to medicated feed and stopped the practice of monthly treatments. also pouring on too much grain in an effort to make them gain weight can upset the rumen and effective digestion makeing for upset tummies and goats that don't have much appetite. are there copper or selenium issues that aren't being addressed in your herd? I would suggest you look for basic loopholes i your management practices before pouring money into supplements such as these.


----------



## Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians (May 6, 2002)

Cannon Farms, visit my website, it's horrible out of date with new pictures going up after labor day weekend. Those girls live off of alfala pellets, oats, blue bonnet minerals, water and grass hay. Now, my mineral is excellent and I copper bolus, I also haven't wormed the 6 adult girls or the 5 first fresheners since march...they will be wormed even though we haven't had a raise in fecals, because they are being bred in September.

IF your not bolusing do, and sorry but I have no idea what Tiz Whiz is, not rhymeing on purpose  

When feeding sweet feeds to your goats it makes their rumen more acidic, they actually can't even eat as much sweet feed as they need to milk well and look great as they can dry mixes. The rumen is already acidic due to the saliva, so try to keep the molassas out of their grain mix, just with that I bet your will see a difference. 

Make sure you make your feed changes slowly, all does who kidded in the spring should start putting on weight now, since their milk amounts are down or their kids are weaned. So don't make a small change with a product like this and give the condition your goats gain all the credit, then find you have milkers freshening in the spring as skeletons again.

Also alot of folks blame everything on feed when alot is conformation. Does who carry no general appearance or body capacity, simply look bad, a grain can't fix that either.

Birdy is milking 11 pounds still, she is now 8 years old, kidded on Easter day, she is being bred next month and will stay in milk until 100 days pregnant, all on the above diet, and over 200 pounds. Grain is rarely the answer to any problem, it's usually the problem. Vicki


----------



## Cannon_Farms (Aug 28, 2008)

The feed stuff i use is a mix of tiz whizes one dry pellet and a small amount of thier goat grain ration. I dont feed medicated feeds, I could with the show girls i guess but we also butcher goats here as well and I hadnt liked the idea of it. I do treat with Albon for coccidia.
its not that they are behind in weight, my goats actually look better than anything else I see in the pasture but those are not goats that get fed it seems ever potion under the sun when you talk with the other show folks around here, it seems every one has their secret on what they do, granted most of its just purley better genetics. 
The minerals I use going by the chart of what my county is poor in and good in should be sufficent. 
Im glad that yall did respond, my first instint is that it was purely marketing and wasnt a needed thing. All in all Id say my girls are doing pretty well for their breeding but I still would like to see them gain more weight and hight, they are solid as rocks.

This little doe, if she would fill out her frame better she would be a good brood doe, shes very wide in the front and back (not too wide), shes the one I would like to see put on more weight above all.
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd61/deskidsncritters/P1010004-4.jpg
heres two we are just working on conditioning as im ok with their weight, more wouldnt exactly hurt though,
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd61/deskidsncritters/P1010003-6.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd61/deskidsncritters/P1010005-12.jpg

I do have a question, the meds in the medicated feed i was told wasnt good at curing coccidia and can cause polio, the best medicated feed I can get is the ADM.


----------



## Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians (May 6, 2002)

The lighter red headed kid is slighter because she has more dairy bone in her than the darker headed kid who has alot more boer genetics. Longer bone gives you a longer leaner neck, more heigth and she is always going to look leaner. Always feel your goats over the ribs, if they are fleshed than they are fine.

Your not wanting to ever have to CURE coccidia, you always want to be in prevention mode. Because, like the other thread, by the time a kid looks like those photos they really are ruined, there intestines are sloughing and they will never heal the scar tissue. Giving your kids a couple of oral cocci prevention treatments at 3 and 6 weeks, in boers, by then they are consuming quite a bit of medicated feed with mom, this helps them keep cocci levels low.

Whoever told you the polio thing doesn't know what they are talking about. If overdosed sulfas or amprolium(corid) can bring on polio (thiamin defficency) because it stops the healthy rumen from building B1/thiamin. But at correct doses it helps kids keep levels of cocci low, so they can build immunity. But no if your kids have cocci in any kind of numbers, putting them on medicated feed is meaningless, they have to be put onto it when levels are low for it to continue to work.

I never raised my boers like most. Mine never saw alfalfa unless 100 days pregnant, then they got alfalfa pellets in the maternity pasture they kidded into. My boers only got grain when 100 days pregnant and through nursing kids in the maternity pasture, once 12 weeks from kidding, it was back into the woods pen with the buck, no grain except a bucket of corn poured into a feeder that was eaten in about 5 mintues, which gave me time to catch one goat, trim her feet or move her to the materinity pen or worm/vaccinate. Boers were bred to kid out 2 kids and raise them adquately on just sparse browse....I fed them really well the last 50 days of pregnancy and 12 weeks of nursing so that I could breed them right back, which way compensated me for the costs of grain with the kids they had 3 times in 2 years. Boer doelings were raised on the same program I do dairy kids until breeding age when the group went out with a young buck I kept each year to breed them, once through the maternity pen at about 15 months old, they were out with the big buck in the woods and the young buckling who bred that group was sold, every other year this young buck was kept and the older buck sold. This way I only had one young buck here a year and one older buck here a year, with the older buck always with does or on lease I never had problems with bucks.

Use prevention on your stock, learn to fecal sample...those are the secret bullets.


----------



## Cannon_Farms (Aug 28, 2008)

Thank you,
its odd that you say that the lighter head has dairy genetics, her mom is out of a strait 100% cross between a boer and kiko, and her mom was bred back to her sire, however the darker head ones grandparents are a boer doe and a nubian buck, and of course both where sired by my Eggs buck. Maybe its just too early.

The goat vet i used when the little one got polio said that even the albon could upset her rumen, wasnt normally enough of a concern but with her being sick, at that time I had just finished a round of albon. 

Unfortunalty my goats dont have pasture, and dont get to browse that much, typically about an hour maybe two in the evening when i can let them out. None of the moms get anymore than what they do before they are bred, but are fed well enough to conpensate for the lack of natual pasture with good hay and feed that they stay in good condition. The doe i just had issues with her milk and bag as soon as i moved her out of the weaning pen and she stopped getting the really good stuff her issues cleared up and her and her kid are doing very well. I only had one doe that couldnt maintain her self this year despite anything i did and shes long gone now.


----------



## Jcran (Jan 4, 2006)

I think your goats look good. However, I must say that copper bolusing has really helped me put "the shine" to my does. I had a lot of comments at our show two weeks ago about how glossy the girls' coats were. I DO think bolusing every 6 months really helps. My goats get Manna Pro goat minerals (because Vicki's darned Bluebonnet mineral people don't have a dealer anywhere NEAR California), copper bolused every 6 months, local clean grass hay ad libitum, and a little alfalfa...oh, yeah, and water. I think I'm going to go to a medicated decoxx pellet for replacement does and show wethers next year. I've been doing the decoxx prevention every 3 weeks for kids but never went to a pellet when they were big enough to eat grain.


----------



## DQ (Aug 4, 2006)

I think your goats are in good condition. sometimes pictures can make things look better or worse then they really are though. honestly I have found that it doesn't matter too much what % boer they are. there are tons of 100% boer south african enobled blah blah blah that are really just plain ol goats. it has gotten unfortunatly to be a bit like the quarter horse world where some people are selling and valueing the boers based on pedigree only without making sure that the in idividual goat is really an outstanding example of the breed. everyone has different priorities though. a big meaty goat is worthless to me if I have to pour on the feed to get it to grow and raise nice healthy kids. and a bit lighter boned doe is a champion here if she can go out and browse her way through a lactation, give me decent size kids at weaning time and not look like a skeleton  out of my first two boers does I purchased my favorite was very "boer like" long low and wide. the other wasn't my fav because she was "only 50%" and leggy and rather lean. I ended up selling the one I thought would be my favorite because she had such slow growing kids and she always looked awful after kidding adn through the lactation. pretty is as pretty does. I still have my 50% doe and she is fabulous!


----------



## Cannon_Farms (Aug 28, 2008)

I have went back and forth between the mana pro and the dumor pasture minerals. We have 24ppm copper content in our soil, the feed I feed most of has 80 ppm in it, plus the minerals which im not sure how much copper off hand is in it, I think with that I should be covered on copper right?
One thing I have been looking into is the colbalt thing, since its so hard to find out what a goat actually needs its very hard to find a one in everything mineral, especially when you have to take in account what your soil and feed already has in it. 
Im off tomorrow (finally) and I have to work the girls anyway so Ill try to get some set pictures instead of the snap on the run ones.
I will have to say, looking at the new baby, Im mighty hopefull for her future, shes two weeks old and solid, long and broad and heavy, unfortunatly though her ears have a wrinkle fold in them but we may still try to show her some since its only an undesirable trait.


----------



## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

I'll check my mineral label when I go out to the barn this morning, but I think yours are very low.

Edited to add:

Right Now "Onyx" by Cargill is 2500 ppm on copper.


----------



## Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians (May 6, 2002)

It's not nearly as important the PPM of copper as it is if the copper is available for the liver to store, sulfate is not. So if the whole 2500 is just copper sulfate and another mineral contains 1000 ppm and has chelated copper or amino acid copper complex, or copper oxides it's a better mineral. And having a high copper mineral is moot unless you live in the pacific northwest or in an area someone is running liver biopsy to know...when you are bolusing to supply the copper your goat needs. I don't know how much of Joyce's info is up on her website, but she only fed a 750 PPM of copper (I am almost sure that was the amount) along with bolusing. She was freaked in the beginning with my information that I was not only bolusing but offering my minerals to my girls like I do. But out last liver biopsys were excellent, so I am going to continue, the problem is unless I have a tragedy here, it isn't likely that I will have a chance to biopsy again for 4 more years, with my oldest milkers just 8 years old.

CF: Do make sure you don't compensate for no pasture with more grain, do it with a lesser quality hay offered, perhaps all local grass hay? That is where most folks hurt their stock is by thinking grain in some form is going to improve something when you obviously already have them on a good grain program...think roughage if you want more. Vicki


----------

