Okay, I'll give that a go! Thank you very much for the advice.
As for the loose minerals, do you just leave it in a bowl for them or do you mix it with their food? Also, what kind of minerals should I look at getting for them? I was told that they get all their needed minerals from the salt licks which they absolutely love.
I personally use
manna pro loose goat minerals, but there are plenty of other brands out there. There is very little table salt (NaCl) in the mixture, rather, it has everything else they need more more appropriate amounts.
Those salt blocks are truly just that,
table salt, NaCl. Maybe with a tiny amount of other minerals, but not enough of them for a goat. The goats get a lot of table salt from it, but not enough selenium, copper, zinc, etc. They really do like it, likely because they aren't getting much from it, so they have to
devour it to meet their mineral needs.
I have a small feed pan that is attached to the inside of the shed I use for my goats. It stays out of the wind and rain. I fill it up as they need. I do not add it directly to their feed. They can self regulate their intake.
The reason I keep specifying NaCl is because the minerals in the loose minerals
are in salt form (like magnesium sulfate, cobalt carbonate, sodium selenite, etc. ).
A salt is just an ionic compound, and many minerals are found in salt form in nature, it is more stable. For instance, copper sulfate is a salt...but trying to put a sprinkle of it over cooking would...likely poison a person.
