dcullon
Chillin' with the herd
I have a Nigerian Dwarf wether. He is having some dandruff and dry skin. Is there a oil or something l;ike Flax seed that I can put in his food?
Thanks Debbie
Thanks Debbie
Giving oil for dry skin
- Thread starter dcullon
- Start date
mully
Loving the herd life
Yes ...... black oil sunflower seeds. Don't expect results in a week but 4-6 weeks they will look shinier with better color.
Ok..sorry, got busy.
The thing about BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds) that's very easy to overlook is that they're a supplemental feed, just like grain. With grain, goat owners -- especially owners of bucks and wethers -- almost instinctively look at the Ca
ratio to ensure that they're feeding something safe. Yet, when it comes to feeding something like BOSS, while it's just as critical, that step is easily and often overlooked.
That said, you won't find a Ca ratio on a bag of BOSS, even if you look. You gotta go digging for it. Actually, not only do you have to dig for the ratio, but also for the breakdown by weight..
I happened to have run across this at some point.. I can't speak to the veracity of the info, but I will say that it falls in line with what I expected. It lists 527.43mg of Calcium and 3205.50mg of Phosphorus per pound of BOSS.
That's about a 1:6 Ca ratio...which is quite literally wrong about 12 times over for goats. If most any of us picked up a bag of grain labeled for goats that showed a 1:6 Ca ratio, we'd snort and perhaps chortle in disbelief shortly before dropping it to the ground and proceeding to run the other way like our hair was on fire.
Well...I mean...I would.
Yet, lots of folks throw BOSS in with their goat feed without so much as a second thought, thereby perhaps totally out-of-whacking the balance of the overall ration.
Now...I say "perhaps" because we don't really know how many miligrams of calcium or phosphorus our goat feeds contain. They give us the ratio, because they don't expect we'll ever be mixing anything in.
If, for instance, a pound of goat grain had 2/3rds of a pound of Calcium and 1/3rd of a pound of Phosphorus...a few milligrams this way or the other wouldn't make much difference..
Unfortunately, though, that's not the case. Even without having the numbers right in front of me, I can still say with a good deal of confidence that you're talking miligrams or grams at most which means that it does matter what you mix in -- even if what you're mixing in also contains but a few milligrams either way. That, of course, makes it difficult at best to determine how much BOSS can be safely mixed in without totally destroying the balance of our goat feeds.
However....
I have read that a pound of alfalfa pellets can safely be assumed to contain about 1.5-2% calcium and 0.2-0.3% phosphorus.. A pound is about 454g. That means a pound of alfalfa pellets would have at least 7000mg of calcium and, probably at most, 1362mg of phosphorus.
As such, a half pound would contain 3500mg and 681mg, respectively. If you were to add 1/2lb of BOSS to that, you'd end up with a total of 3763mg Calcium and 2283mg Phosphorus -- NOT a 2:1 ratio....but closer to it.
You can do the math on the rest, but you're looking at something like 2/3rds alfalfa pellets and 1/3 BOSS, maximum, to remain within that 2:1 ratio.
The scary part is that if you look at the numbers on alfalfa pellets in terms of a ratio, they're like 6:1 Ca....and you can still only mix it 2:1 with BOSS!
Now...imagine how little BOSS it would take to totally screw up a carefully formulated 2:1 goat grain with precisely zero "extra" calcium to play with.
So..my advice..if you want to get the wether's coat in better shape, start switching him over to alfalfa pellets to lay the groundwork for bringing in a little BOSS, and never mix more than about 1 part BOSS to every 2 parts alfalfa pellets you feed after that.
Frankly, I'd recommend alfalfa pellets over grain for male goats any day of the week anyway. Trust me when I tell you that urinary calculi is not something you wanna mess around with.
Just my $.02.
The thing about BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds) that's very easy to overlook is that they're a supplemental feed, just like grain. With grain, goat owners -- especially owners of bucks and wethers -- almost instinctively look at the Ca
ratio to ensure that they're feeding something safe. Yet, when it comes to feeding something like BOSS, while it's just as critical, that step is easily and often overlooked.That said, you won't find a Ca
ratio on a bag of BOSS, even if you look. You gotta go digging for it. Actually, not only do you have to dig for the ratio, but also for the breakdown by weight..I happened to have run across this at some point.. I can't speak to the veracity of the info, but I will say that it falls in line with what I expected. It lists 527.43mg of Calcium and 3205.50mg of Phosphorus per pound of BOSS.
That's about a 1:6 Ca
ratio...which is quite literally wrong about 12 times over for goats. If most any of us picked up a bag of grain labeled for goats that showed a 1:6 Ca ratio, we'd snort and perhaps chortle in disbelief shortly before dropping it to the ground and proceeding to run the other way like our hair was on fire.Well...I mean...I would.
Yet, lots of folks throw BOSS in with their goat feed without so much as a second thought, thereby perhaps totally out-of-whacking the balance of the overall ration.
Now...I say "perhaps" because we don't really know how many miligrams of calcium or phosphorus our goat feeds contain. They give us the ratio, because they don't expect we'll ever be mixing anything in.
If, for instance, a pound of goat grain had 2/3rds of a pound of Calcium and 1/3rd of a pound of Phosphorus...a few milligrams this way or the other wouldn't make much difference..
Unfortunately, though, that's not the case. Even without having the numbers right in front of me, I can still say with a good deal of confidence that you're talking miligrams or grams at most which means that it does matter what you mix in -- even if what you're mixing in also contains but a few milligrams either way. That, of course, makes it difficult at best to determine how much BOSS can be safely mixed in without totally destroying the balance of our goat feeds.
However....
I have read that a pound of alfalfa pellets can safely be assumed to contain about 1.5-2% calcium and 0.2-0.3% phosphorus.. A pound is about 454g. That means a pound of alfalfa pellets would have at least 7000mg of calcium and, probably at most, 1362mg of phosphorus.
As such, a half pound would contain 3500mg and 681mg, respectively. If you were to add 1/2lb of BOSS to that, you'd end up with a total of 3763mg Calcium and 2283mg Phosphorus -- NOT a 2:1 ratio....but closer to it.
You can do the math on the rest, but you're looking at something like 2/3rds alfalfa pellets and 1/3 BOSS, maximum, to remain within that 2:1 ratio.
The scary part is that if you look at the numbers on alfalfa pellets in terms of a ratio, they're like 6:1 Ca
....and you can still only mix it 2:1 with BOSS!Now...imagine how little BOSS it would take to totally screw up a carefully formulated 2:1 goat grain with precisely zero "extra" calcium to play with.
So..my advice..if you want to get the wether's coat in better shape, start switching him over to alfalfa pellets to lay the groundwork for bringing in a little BOSS, and never mix more than about 1 part BOSS to every 2 parts alfalfa pellets you feed after that.
Frankly, I'd recommend alfalfa pellets over grain for male goats any day of the week anyway. Trust me when I tell you that urinary calculi is not something you wanna mess around with.
Just my $.02.
