Homemade Grain Mix & Mineral Deficiencies

[SustainableAg]

I would love to feed my Mini Nubian goats a homemade organic grain mix, to have more control over what they are eating. For those of you that have fed commercial grain mixes, and mixed your own feed ration – did you see mineral
deficiencies more frequently without a name brand feed mix?

I know most everyone feeds free choice loose minerals. But the commercial mixes contain added vitamins and minerals that a homemade mix typically would not. What about Copper? I know commercial mixes never have enough Copper anyway, and the goats would still need a Copper Bolus.

Does a good quality loose mineral make up for what the feed is lacking, as long as the Calcium : Phosphorus
is correct, and protein levels are correct for the different ages&stages that are eating the feed?

I know a COB base with alfalfa pellets/hay is a common feed choice.
Does anyone have a homemade grain mix recipe they want to share? I would ideally like to stay away from Corn and Soy in the feed mix. I know the lack of soy makes it difficult, but not impossible, to reach the proper protein content.

Thanks for any input!

 

[Jesusfreak101]

one i used that i never had issue with is as followed.
2 parts oats, 2parts barley, 1 part calf manna, 1 part black oil sunflower seeds. my goats not only loved it but did well and produced well on it. a dairy farm i bought my buck from used it and gave me the recipe.

 

[Alaskan]

I think the main issue with mixing your own is the calcium to phosphorus ratio, and the protein.

Minerals are mostly from the loose minerals. I am in a copper poor and selenium poor area. So we did copper bolus for the goats, and a selenium paste once a month. We also gave a vitamin d paste once a month.

I had the huge issue of limited choice, and a kid that is celiac. Too much gluten in the feed would get into the milk. Barley has gluten.

The only grains I can easily get are barley and oats. Oats by themselves are not a good choice.

Anyway... I decided to try to aim at a diet as varied as possible since I knew that keeping on top of nutritional calculations was too much work for me.

We did feed some oats, a handful of black oil sunflower, alfalfa pellets, local hay, and they had a very large pasture and grazing area.

In the winter when grazing was limited we had "other stuff" to add to their diet.

The other stuff, to help round out the diet was high nutrition weeds and browse that we gathered and dried, as well as pumpkin.

 

[SustainableAg]

Thank you @Jesusfreak101 for sharing that recipe!
@Alaskan That is mostly what I am thinking. We will have to offer a variety of different feed items and stay on top of the vitamins & minerals that they get. We are also in a Selenium depleted area.

The goats have an old hay pasture that nature has partially reclaimed with plenty of goat friendly weeds/browse.

I am hoping somehow it all evens out in the end. We have a poor selection of commercial feed options here. The feed rotation rate is terribly slow because we are surrounded by dairy/beef farms, so the local feed store only keeps a few bags in stock. And I don't have enough goats to keep stock rotated on my own.