evaluating my feed for nutritional minimums

[mtngranny]

Hey all,

As posted in the 911 section, we lost our dear Josephine about a month ago. Since then we've been re-evaluating our system and looking for ways to improve before her replacement gets here.

In August we'd switched from a nationally-marketed organic dairy ration to a locally-milled non-GMO feed. We were so happy to be purchasing non-GMO local from a Mennonite family but after asking some questions about the feed I am concerned that its lack of something(s) important may have contributed to Jo's death. The "cattle" feed is sold for use by beef cattle, goats *and* dairy cows, so it probably is not specific nutritionally for any of them, although it may be sufficient for the former two.

Here is the ingredient list:

corn,oats,roasted soybeans,alfalfa meal, molasses, sodium silico aluminate, dried kelp, salt, di-calcium phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, seashell flour, condensed lactobacillus fermentation solubles, magnesium oxide, potassium magnesium sulfate, dried saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation product, dried spergillus cryzae fermentation extract, dried fermenation products of lactobacillus acidophilus, enterocuccus faecium, lactobacillus casei, lactobacillus plantarum, calcium carbonate, yeast culture, dried aspergullus niger fermentation extract, sodium selenite , vitamin A supplement, vitamin D3 supplement, vitamin E supplement, vitamin B12 supplement, d-Calcium pantothenate, niacin, thiamine hydrochloride, riboflavin, folic acid, polysiccharide complexes of zinc, manganese iron, copper and cobalt.

I've already skimmed through ToK and read some pertinent threads, but I would appreciate any advice on making sure we are not feeding a deficient ration. We were supplementing Jo with plenty of kelp but had run out a week before she died. We also offered her minerals that were recommended by others but she refused to eat those.

Thanks so much for your suggestions.

[simplynaturalfarm]

Sounds like they added supplements such as Fertrell sells to a regular grain mix. To be honest, if you were offering other minerals, kelp and decent hay, this feed in itself should not have contributed to her death unless there was a huge mistake in the mix - which has happened. BUT many of us feed our own grain mixes without problems, many of us use generic grain mixes for all varieties of animals without seeing problems. I do not recall exactly what Jo died of, but it would have to be a major accident in the feed mixing for this to have killed her.
We tweak our recipes based on what the cow's performance or condition is, changing the protein to be lower if we need more energy, higher if we want production etc, but the majority of us feed dairy grain mixes, generic cow feeds (suitable for beef or dairy) sweet feed/COB mixes, and alfalfa pellet mixes.
Regards
Heather

[simplynaturalfarm]

I just read all the posts on your cow when she got sick. I'll ask my veterinarian husband to read and see if he has any thoughts.
By the way, I do not think your vet has very much cow experience if he/she thinks ketosis is caused by poor hay! I have to run and do chores, but will share the ketosis posts on negative energy balances - poor hay can contribute somewhat, but it is most often too few carbohydrates for the energy requirements of the cow. Most dairy cows have a hard time deriving their energy from hay alone. There are other things like overweight heifers and cows at calving etc, but MOST Of the time it is too few calories for the cows needs.
Heather

[mtngranny]

Thanks so much Heather, I so appreciate your help.

The vet thought it *wasn't* ketosis--she said that in ketosis the cow is usually terribly constipated, and that while Jo's manure was dry, it wasn't dry enough to be ketosis. ?? By reading the thread you will probably guess that we didn't have alot of confidence in our vet's handling of the situation, especially since she didn't seem to take it very seriously and it was obviously very serious.

I did however take very much to heart the vet's statements that Jo was too thin and not in good condition. My dd knew she was thin but wasn't sure what to do about it as we were feeding her adequate amounts of dairy ration and she had all the hay she could want. Dd couldn't tell that there was anything wrong with the hay, and neither could I, but the vet thought it was poor quality. After Jo died we still had her little heifer Dolly to care for and of course wanted to do all possible to protect her so we immediately purchased an expensive round bale from a local farm that is reputed to have excellent hay--used by many wealthy horse-owners in this area. When it arrived we compared it to what we had and honestly cannot see a difference.

So based on Jo's rapid demise and her being too thin I am concerned that perhaps the feed also was deficient in some way. Perhaps it wasn't, perhaps it was the fact that we ran out of kelp and didn't have any other mineral supplement available?

Jo was 13 years old so that might have had something to do with it too, maybe she just didn't have the stamina to deal with whatever it was.

thanks for any advice.

[mtngranny]

Just checked with dd and she says Jo was getting 12# of the dairy feed daily. She was giving 2 gallons milk to us each morning plus having her 5 mo calf on her the rest of the day. (Another thing the vet was mistaken about--she said "she's hardly giving any milk, her udder is like a dry cow.")

The vet never said what she thought it was. She was gong to write a report, she said, but she never sent it to us. When I talked to her she mainly focused on the fact that Jo was underfed and that I shouldn't have gone and got "lay advice" after calling in a professional.

My dh thinks that intubating Jo is what might have actually killed her, but she was very, very sick before he did that so I told him not to feel too badly about it.

[Jenn]

Horse hay doesn't necessarily mean anything in my area...just more expensive. I have purchase "horse hay" sight unseen when in a bind and it was totally stemmy and yellow.

-Jenn

[mtngranny]

Yes, I'm sure that's true, but I think alot of the horse people around here do buy from this farm, and these are very wealthy and very sophisticated horse folks (Middleburg, Virginia). So I would think they really knew where the good hay was to be had.

[birdsongmilkmaid]

Jan 19, 2011 19:21:44 GMT -5 mtngranny said:

I did however take very much to heart the vet's statements that Jo was too thin and not in good condition. My dd knew she was thin but wasn't sure what to do about it as we were feeding her adequate amounts of dairy ration and she had all the hay she could want. Dd couldn't tell that there was anything wrong with the hay, and neither could I, but the vet thought it was poor quality. After Jo died we still had her little heifer Dolly to care for and of course wanted to do all possible to protect her so we immediately purchased an expensive round bale from a local farm that is reputed to have excellent hay--used by many wealthy horse-owners in this area. When it arrived we compared it to what we had and honestly cannot see a difference.

So based on Jo's rapid demise and her being too thin I am concerned that perhaps the feed also was deficient in some way. Perhaps it wasn't, perhaps it was the fact that we ran out of kelp and didn't have any other mineral supplement available?

Jo was 13 years old so that might have had something to do with it too, maybe she just didn't have the stamina to deal with whatever it was.

Could Jo's underweight condition and ultimate demise be caused by her age? I'm just wondering because several years ago I had an 11-year-old goat who started losing weight, and several months later got to the point where she couldn't stand. She died about a week later. I tried and tried to get her to gain weight, but didn't matter what the quality of feed was or how much I fed her, she continued to get worse. Our final conclusion was that she was just too old. Seeing that your cow Jo was 13, I'm wondering if it was caused by old age.

Naomi

[simplynaturalfarm]

Naomi, was there any way she had Johnes - your goat that is? While age can definitely make a difference, wasting like that is really common and my husband lost quite a few goats when he was young to it.
Heather

[birdsongmilkmaid]

If it was Johnes, wouldn't my other goats be wasting too, Heather? (By the way, not sure how prevalent it is in Canada.)

I've sometimes wondered if it was copper deficiency, I lost quite a few goats (mostly kids) that year and the year after to copper deficiency. I've started feeding 1 teaspoons of copper sulfate to each goat's ration four times a year, and I haven't lost any more goats since then. I read that copper deficiency also causes weight loss, so that might be a possibility, too.

Naomi

[mtngranny]

I think her age probably did have an influence--being so old she likely lacked the resistance to the deficiency that she might have had when younger. However I don't think that was the main cause as she had always been so well and really seemed alot younger than her age. She just had a healthy calf in August. It just seemed like we should have been able to save her . . .

[kristi]

You know, sometimes we'll never know "why". It's one of the hard parts of living on a farm and having livestock. No matter what, sounds like you did the best you could with what you had to work with.

I once had an older miniature horse given to me when I was a kid (16). She wouldn't gain weight no matter what/how much you fed her. She wasn't skin and bones, but thinner than she should have been. She couldn't get up one day and I carried her to the vet. He said it was her heart...it just wasn't right and was the reason she wouldn't gain weight. It could be there was something like that wrong with your girl. Nothing real obvious, but just enough to weaken her.

Just my $.02 worth.

[mtngranny]

Thanks.

It was suggested that we send her carcass in to the lab as then we would know 100% what the actual cause of death was. We couldn't really entertain the suggestion as we had no way of getting her there. It cost $65 too, and the vet had already charged us almost $200. Sigh. So yes, now we will never know.