# Sweetlix Tub feed for goats



## Cotton Eyed Does (Oct 26, 2007)

http://www.sweetlix.com/products/product_display.php?recordID=42

Has anyone used this?

I have a friend that feeds her boer goats this tub and grass hay during the winter months.


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## Guest (Dec 6, 2007)

I have never tried it, but I do use Sweet lix minerals and like them, I have thought about the tub, might go ahead and get one this week, it does have molasses in it.


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

> High molasses content is ideal for does susceptible to pregnancy toxemia in the last trimester


Don't know as I like that


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## Ravens Haven (Oct 26, 2007)

I use these for bucks as my does just use them to stand on. The bucks LOVE them, so do my cows..


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## ozark_jewels (Oct 27, 2007)

I fed these one year to my entire doe/kid herd. The does were raising their own kids that year as we had just moved. They did very well on them. I like the protien blocks better though. The great thing about using the tubs was all the wonderful water and feed tubs I had when they were cleaned out. :lol


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## DostThouHaveMilk (Oct 25, 2007)

It did not work well here the one time I used them. They were a sticky mess and the kids climbed on them.
I do love the empty tub I have now and I put the loose mineral in it.

I prefer the Protein blocks to these sticky tubs...
The goats do, too.


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## ozark_jewels (Oct 27, 2007)

This is a mild version of what my white goats looked like when I was using the lick-tubs.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Yes Chris you will freak when you see the molassas all over them like diarrhea honestly. Also be very careful. I am feeding the all natural protien block, and when I went to get 2 more last week, they sent Dewey the wrong ones. They were for goats but and cheaper by $2 but the second ingredient was urea. Now why would a company supposedly catering to goats in the first place, and Ms. Nix knows EVERYTHING about goats, just ask her  yet they still make a product for goats with urea in it? So each and every time you get it check the label! 

I also have a gut feeling about the overfeeding of protien and bowed legs in young bred does....I do think eventually the problem herds will see that this excess protein is the reason for the calcium not being absorbed/utilized...it really is the only common link. Vicki


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## Corky (Oct 26, 2007)

I just read an article in a dairy goat journal saying to feed this to bred does to prevent pregnancy toxemia. I wondered what you all thought about it.

The reason for it was the molasses and I wondered if sweet feed would do the same thing. This to be fed when you raise their grain level at the end of pregnancy.

I no longer feed anything with molasses in it. Right now all my does are down to one cup of grain daily because everything I have read says they need a little grain to help absorb calcium.


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## Kaye White (Oct 25, 2007)

> Now why would a company supposedly catering to goats in the first place, and Ms. Nix knows EVERYTHING about goats, just ask her yet they still make a product for goats with *urea * in it?


 :rofl My opinion of that, too. ?? HOW MANY years have we been warned about urea in the feed???? That opinion hasn't changed here and it won't. Reason...I tried years ago to change to dairy cow management, feed with urea,...and ended up loosing two does. It won't be fed here in any form!

I also tried the tubs and they ended up being a cesspool of manure, feet, and dirt! (think coccidia,worms, and goats won't eat if there's manure in the bucket unless they're starving). Not even to metion the molasses on the does. I washed more of the stuff out on the ground trying to keep the tubs clean than the does ate. I canned that idea in hurry! 
JMO,
Kaye


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## MayLOC (Oct 26, 2007)

Kaye White said:


> > Now why would a company supposedly catering to goats in the first place, and Ms. Nix knows EVERYTHING about goats, just ask her yet they still make a product for goats with *urea * in it?
> 
> 
> :rofl My opinion of that, too. ?? HOW MANY years have we been warned about urea in the feed???? That opinion hasn't changed here and it won't. Reason...I tried years ago to change to dairy cow management, feed with urea,...and ended up loosing two does. It won't be fed here in any form!
> ...


the manufacturer changed the ing. on their cake that my husbands family was feeding the cows some years ago --back before I was around  they lost quite a few cattle and tested and it was the urea. So now it is urea free feeds and minerals. So the very word makes everybody around here wide eyed :shocked :shocked


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## Narrow Chance (Oct 29, 2007)

If you want molasses for your does.. what about the dried molasses in drinking water?? You can control that.. and you can bet no kid will be getting into that.. :rofl 
I use the dried molasses in drinking water at shows. We have well water and it's a nightmare at shows when the water smells of chlorine. I tried the Koolaid, Gatorade trick.. nothing. I start putting a bit in the drinking water at home.. just enough to get them liking it.. which they will.. and at shows.. not a problem.

Comes in 50# bags..dried and looks like coffee flakes. Cheap also.. think it was less than $10 a bag. 

Rett


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

We all know that sugar in any form, no matter how awful, refined, bleached it is, is only a quick fix of a much bigger problem...lack of energy. Even in us, it gives us energy temporarily and then our blood sugar level plummets. Energy in the form of grain is sustained. Plus it doesn't cause the acidosis in the rumen molassas does unless overfed. We also know that in some areas, like mine, we have soo much iron in our soils and water, that adding more iron in the form of molassas feedings everyday is binding the copper and calcium in our does diets.

We all know all this, it isn't conjecture at this point, yet we have to go round and round on this molassas idea because a company has some really glossy rhetoric out there. Feeding the protein blocks I can see, yes there is molassas in them but not in any form close to those tubs. 

Move away from the slick advertising...move away from feeding your goats like cows.

And know that the first sympotom of urea posioning in your goats is death. Vicki


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## Tim Pruitt (Oct 26, 2007)

Dittos there Vicki on the urea. I learned how quickly urea kills many years ago - a lesson I will never have to learn again. Yet, I have heard Jackie Nix's argument again and again that urea won't kill. That's baloney.


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## Bella Star (Oct 27, 2007)

Ditto on everything said, I prefer the blocks than the sticky messy tubs but the tubs are real nice for water for kids to reach when empty.


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## MayLOC (Oct 26, 2007)

ya, the tubs are great, and we have a HUGE supply here. One guy that runs pasture cattle on part of our place uses tubs-vitalyx- instead of cake and we get to keep all the tubs as they no longer give refunds when you take them back. :biggrin


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## Bella Star (Oct 27, 2007)

Yes, those are big tubs and the guy next to us had them out for his cows ... I wanted them SOooo bad for container growing but they were gone after the cows ate them :down

They would make great tubs for easy non back hurting container growing veggies !!
I have a lemon tree and a sm. orange tree growing in them in the greenhouse from where we use to coastal live,I have lemons ready now to eat


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## Qvrfullmidwife (Oct 25, 2007)

"I do think eventually the problem herds will see that this excess protein is the reason for the calcium not being absorbed/utilized...it really is the only common link. "

What about magnesium? In people (diff species, both mammals, so maybe it is the same?) you need a 2:1 ration of calcium to magnesium for the calcium to be well absorbed. Without the magnesium all the calcium in the world isnt likely to do you much good.


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## Guest (Dec 7, 2007)

Bella, I had one with the bottom knocked out of it and grew the straw potatoes last year in it where you keep adding straw and them dump them when the vine dies to harvest, worked well. I have them for water tanks.


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## Bella Star (Oct 27, 2007)

HHmm Cosco, I will have to try the potato tub and see,sure seems easier to get those spuds and yes ,I bet they are great for water and also putting in my mule for when I pick up junk scattered here and there.Thanks !


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## goatkid (Oct 26, 2007)

Some folks I know fed the Sweetlix tubs to their goats. They all had sticky faces. No way would I want my does to have that stuff all over them. I had some does up there when my DH was raising goats with them. They looked awful and all have since died after I sold them to the folks. I did score some of the tubs which I use for feed.
As far as urea goes - it's deadly for goats. A breeder I know bought some beet pulp pellets that accidently had urea on them. She watched several of her prize does die a painful death. Needless to say, when the feed mill paid her for the value of the lost animals, it was enough to pay off her mortgage.


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## Chaty (Oct 25, 2007)

I have heard horror stories about the tubs for goats as in the summer they heat up and get soft and then the babies play on them and will sink in it. not good. just a thought.


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## ozark_jewels (Oct 27, 2007)

Chaty said:


> I have heard horror stories about the tubs for goats as in the summer they heat up and get soft and then the babies play on them and will sink in it. not good. just a thought.


Ask the supplier about these. When I used the lick tubs, they had "summer tubs" and "winter tubs". The winter tubs were softer, but the summer tubs were harder so that this would not happen. I fed them year round very safely.


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## Bella Star (Oct 27, 2007)

Blocks are only fed in the wintertime here mostly for a treat with the dry hay and 12% pellet and alfalfa pellets and I don't feed any molasses base sweetfeed in summer due to spoilage in my hot feed shed.


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## prairiecomforts (Oct 25, 2007)

Gosh - I am kind of surprized to hear about some of the problems others are having with lick tubs. I have used them year round for about 2 years and have never had a problem with them at all.


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## wheytogosaanens (Oct 26, 2007)

What about magnesium? In people (diff species, both mammals, so maybe it is the same?) you need a 2:1 ration of calcium to magnesium for the calcium to be well 
absorbed. Without the magnesium all the calcium in the world isnt likely to do you much good.
[/quote]

I checked several mineral tags (I seem to have started a collection  ) and the Calcium is 16 % and Phosphorus is 8 % (a good 2 : 1 ratio). The magnesium is listed at 1.5 %.
So do you think that ratio is correct? Do they obtain magnesium easily through other food sources?

Another thought is that while 2:1 Ca/Ph ratio is the minimum, many recommend up to 5:1. How much Magnesium would you have to have then?

Camille


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