Mineral blocks vs loose minerals

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Songster
10 Years
Jan 31, 2009
373
3
129
I find it curious that people say goats cant have mineral blocks, they need to have loose minerals.

I have never had a deficiency problem using blocks. And mine manage to eat them just fine.

Anyone else use blocks successfully?

Maybe its an Australia/America discrepancy, because the majority of people here use blocks. Maybe US blocks are packed harder than Oz blocks?
 
Maybe when mentioning mineral blocks they mean the horse mineral blocks that are mainly salt? I dont know...

I use the Sweetlix blocks and now Purina is making one for a smaller cost they are made for goats and they love them. I just make sure they are ca:phos balanced as I have found the loose ones available at my feed store are not balanced which is why I went with the block.
 
I personally use four different blocks; the first is a 'Go-Block' specially designed for goats with both macro and mico minerals. But for some reason it doesnt have copper, go figure, so the second block is 'Lactovite with Copper'. The third is a calcium - molasses block - before I used this I had very minor problems with calcium deficiency in my preggo does - had one girl buckled out in the foreleg and one persistent prolapse. Adding the calcium blocks corrected this quickly. The last is a 'Stone Block' with ammonium chloride for the bucks and wethers.
 
They are all made by Olson's, but seeing as I am in Australia I'm betting they are not available in America. Sorry
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There would have to be US equivalents though
 
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I use the mineral blocks made by Sweetlixs also and like them better than the loose mineral...With the loose mineral that I have tried ; some of the animals would stand around the dispenser until all the product was gone....eating it like feed...but with the block they seem to get tired of the chewing and eventually leave and come back later...When the block gets too small I throw it into the chickens pen and let them have at it...I have found that a good enclosure in needed as the rain really likes the blocks too...as well as the squirrels, rabbits, birds,deer,whatever can get at it. It sells for $14 something around here so I wait for some sale/rebate/something and by 20 or so of them...They are 33# and easy to handle and store....keep them dry and wrapped so the mice/pests can't smell them and start the eating...

here is a link to the product:




http://www.sweetlix.com/media/documents/labels/11683_MeatMaker20Pressed_10-17-08.pdf
 
they say that a goat's tongue isn't rough enough for blocks, i use sweetlix loose minerals, my goats love it, i was lax over the winter and was giving them the edible goat block from tsc, i see a difference in there general condition since they are back on sweetlix
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I use the Sweetlix loose minerals and it's still not enough for my goats. I had to bolus them with copper anyway.
 
When I put out loose minerals mine have to see what it is and they love them also. If you have a block and put out loose yes they will gobble them up because they are getting what the need and cant get from a block. Been there and learned the hard way.
 

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