Renegade said:
I have noticed that a lot of people on hear add BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds) to their goats feed and wondered if anyone has looked up the calcium/phosphorus ratio. It is extremely out of balance. The ratio is 1 to 13. See below.
I have a friend that started givinga handful of BOSS to all of his show goats along with their regular feed. Within a week all of his bucks and buck kids were suffering from a major case of UC.
I'm not saying BOSS is bad just to be careful.
Each cup of BOSS has:
Calcium 117mg
Phophorus 1538mg
Donna
I guess it depends on what nutritional analysis you reference. Here's the one I found:
http://www.understanding-horse-nutrition.com/black-oil-sunflower-seeds.html (I know it's concerning horses, but I was referencing strictly the nutritional analysis not the information pertaining to horses)
Mineral Amount
(per 1 lb) Mineral Amount
(per 1 lb)
Calcium 527.43 mg
Copper 7.96 mg
Iron 30.82 mg
Magnesium 1609.57 mg
Manganese 9.22 mg
Phosphorus 3205.50 mg
Potassium 3132.75 mg
Selenium 270.53 mcg
This would make the Ca(calcium) to pH (phosphorus) ratio 1:6 (527.43 mg divided into 3205.50 mg) . Recommended is 1:4 to 4:1 and goats can tolerate up to 7:1. Still seems low to me. My goats have had no ill effects from feeding about 1 cup a day of BOSS. It's mostly fiber with a good dose of extra calcium for lactating does. I did ask my vet about it and he says it would be fine and won't upset their digestion as would grains, since there's so much fiber in it and the seed is more protein than carbohydrate. It has a helping of selenium also.
Source referenced:
http://www.goatworld.com/nutrition/majorormacrominerals.shtml
I've feed it to my chickens for years and they love it. What the chicken eats nutritionally affects the eggs themselves in a miniscule way. Dietary inconsistencies affect the animal and their ability to reproduce in some cases, such as with chickens. Lack of calcium can be a big problem for laying hens. BOSS can be a good source of extra calcium for laying hens. But if you are feeding a balanced diet to begin with a little extra calcium won't make that much difference one way or the other, unless you have deficient birds to begin with and are attempting to bring them into better condition through dietary optimization.
You never want to throw the balance of your feeding program out of proportion by giving too much of a good thing with any animals. My chickens get it more as a treat, because their diet is easy to throw out of wack. You can upset the balance of a good feeding program by giving too many treats of any kind. I would think the same would be true of goats also.
I believe that any dietary changes you make with animals, albeit goats, chickens, or whatever, especially those that have very easily upset pH, should have dietary changes made slowly so that the body can assimilate and purge excess minerals and toxins gradually. I would think that if you make changes too quickly you may be asking for trouble in the beginning until they adjust to it. Probably depends on the goats and what they are used to at that point.
h ration are not 2/3 to 1...like you would want to prevent UC. 
