# Why or Why Not Cottonseed Meal?



## Hollybrook (Jul 17, 2009)

What's the deal with cottonseed meal, read on some post that it's bad, the feed store owner recommended using it, he said he used to work on dairy farm. I used it but stopped, now I wanna kinda step things up for the shows this fall but my family drinks the milk. Is it not supposed to be used b/c of pesticticides, I know from first hand experience when I used to keep bee's near cotton fields I could tell when they sprayed half my bee's would be dead but I only noticed this when the cotton was in Bloom & full of nectar, I don't even think the flower was pollinated yet so how could the pesticide be in the seed hull's is this a proven fact or hearsay are there other reason's I shouldn't give this to our goat's? It's 41% and they love it!!

Thank you
Dave


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Well 41 percent protein in itself is enough of a reason and being drenched with poison from planting till storage is another. But the main reason is that unless using newly developed strains Cottonseed has toxic properties itself.

The oils processed for human use have classified as safe despite all the residues so people will recommended it for livestock for sure. It is also nortorious carrier of aflatoxins so be sure your feed is being batch tested for that.
There are so many safe and easy feeds- why worry with it! Goats love azaleas too....so they don't get to decide.
Lee


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

A study of meat goats showed increased weight gain but decreased fertility and scrotum size.
They found that ruminants of all classes can "tolerate" the chems in the plants. What they mean by tolerate is debatable.
But I still feel that this is agriculture dumping it's waste and calling it feed and it is important to know who funded the studies.

Lee


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

When I had the cow dairy 25-30 years ago, they suggested cotton seed as a feed. We were still feeding it when FmHA went through the dairy farm buyout and took our farm. A few years later I was asking about CS as a supplement for my goats. The feed company nutritionist said that they stopped supplying it because it had something in it that was bad and was found to be a poor choice to use. I forgot what it was, since that was about 10 years ago.


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

It would be good thing to feed if it weren't for the pesticides used of cotton and you just can't buy it wtihout for the most part. If you need to up protien then use soy bean meal.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I fed it for years, in fact my custom mix contained soybean meal, and cottonseed hulls and meal 50/50 is what they call it out here, as the soul sorce of protein and roughage in the feed. My goats looked great, and milked gangbusters. I honestly didn't know about all the problems with cottonseed meal, until we visit a place with my sons Boy Scout troop.

Not only is it highly pesticide sprayed, but it is also defoliated. I quit using anything that had cottonseed oil in it, including alot of potatoe chips I wouldn't let my kids eat...and then realised I was feeding my goats the same thing. 

It is cheap here, the goats love it and we have never had any problem with it. So quite literally pick your poison if you want to use it or not. As feed prices sore we all will make decisions like this, I feed, feed bread during the winters, I would feed it year round if we didn't have such bad humidity here that molds it way to fast so I can't keep it like I can when the weather is cooler. And I know that it is full of lard (animal products) but the goats look wonderful on it and love it  

I also realistically know that all meat goat pellets and all 16% pellets contain some cottonseed meal in the south, it has to for the price of the pellets compared to real grains. But I justify that in that I don't feed it to my milkers  Vicki


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## Ashlee H (Aug 5, 2009)

Well, I use to feed it too in my feed mixture, but then someone told me about all the bad things about it, and said their really wasn't much nutritional value in it, and it was mainly a "filler product" used to fatten up (not muscle, but fat!) market goats. So I just decided to take it compleatly out of my feed mixture (that both my dairy and meat goats eat!) to ad more soybean to it to boost the up the protein level.


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## Hollybrook (Jul 17, 2009)

Yes Ive been hearing things about soy these day too so like Vicki said choose your poison? Although soy seems to be the lesser of the 2 evils how does it affect milk flavor? When we used the CS meal the milk was rich and creamy but might have been b/c of stage of lactation?


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## Ashlee H (Aug 5, 2009)

Well, this mixture is all my goats have ever had - so I guess I wouldn't know if their was a difference in they way their milked tasted, but I know it tasted good to me!!! :biggrin


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

I use "dead bread" on my goats and horses in the winter too. Good stuff to keep weight on and they all think they are getting great treats. It's getting very hard to find nowadays, as more and more people are using it, but a little goes a long way too. Even up here in the cool north, you have to be very careful of mold in the warmer seasons. I found that opening the bags helps keep the bread in feedable condition longer. As I unload the bread from my car, I rip open the bag and stack the bread in my back porch (which is also the grain room, tack room, medication room, storage room, etc....) It lasts quite nicely from Mid October until early April. I'm sure your "bread season" down/out there is shorter.

I found that when I fed the bread, the milk was sweeter and the fat was a bit higher.


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

Just wondering where you get your dead bread cheap enough to feed to animals?


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

At the "dead bread" store. All our local bakeries have outlet stores. They sell the bread that is close to expiration date, but not quite there yet, for human consumption at a really reduced price. Once it passes the exp date, they sell it for livestock feed. Last time I got it by the truck load, it was 20 bucks for a pick up truck load. When I lost my pick up, I had to buy it by the flat...2.00 a flat, which is the bird food price. That's still a decent enough price to keep weight on hard keepers during our Maine winters. The horses get a loaf a day. The goats get differing amounts depending on the age, stage of lactation or pregnancy and health. The chickens get a loaf twice a day. There's 6-10 loafs per tray depending on the type of bread. When they used ot let me get my own, I would grab the racks that had whole grain bread.


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

interesting Thanks didn't know they sold it later for animals.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Been reading about Cottonseed. Several interesting notes.
The blood levels of goosypols (the toxic component) does increase with feeding cracked seed or ground meal.
The fat content in the seeds actually decreases milk production rather than adding fat to the milk by inhibiting rumen function including conversion of protein. It only increased production in 4 of 13 studies. 
The Chinese discovered Goosypols when a village had NO children born for years and their cooking oil was cottonseed. Reduced fertility is common with long term ingestion mostly affecting males but there is some evidence of reduced embryo quality. It also seemed to extend cycles in dairy cows.
Young animals are the least able to detoxify the goosypols and blood levels can rise enough for death to occur.
The most common cause of death is increased fluid retention in the thoracic and abdominal cavities.
Goosypol availability is increased in meal as opposed to whole seed as the chemical is a colorant in the seed coat and leaks out when crushed. 
Another very important drawback is the concentration of Aflatoxins in cottonseed.
This is not only from poor handling and improper storage. The seeds have been shown to contain these toxins due to harsh growing conditions and stress on the plants. 
This is not to mention the totally toxic cocktail of chems used to grow, harvest and store these plants. 

Lots of info out there
Lee


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## Bella Star (Oct 27, 2007)

HHHmm My new feed source has cotton seeds in it along with real grain and also a tad of molasses to get the yeast and other vitamins to stick to grain .... my goats love it and look great BUT I always mix this with 2x alfalfa,1x oats and a 1x goat pellet to the 1x mixed cottonseed/grain goat mix.
However I only feed this to my milk does on their stand and also ailing goats as the rest of the herd is on pasture only and everybody fat and shiny right now with no difference in appearance from grain fed or pasture fed .


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Alot of the information has no effect on ruminants because of the mechanics of the 4 stomach chambers. If I wasn't selling milk, I wouldn't give it a second thought honestly. You can easily soak your pellets you are feeding in warm water and see if it is in your sack, listed as protein grain by products or roughage grain by products. It's in both my meat goat pellets I use, and it is in one 16% horse pellet I used. So if you use a by products feed tag and you live south of the mason dixon, you can be assured you have cotton seed meal in your pellets. Vicki


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Another tidbit about this that I ran across was that since the cotton industry is so heavily subsidized and price supported (your tax dollars at work) these cheap prices for the by products may not last. We are paying 52 percent of the income of cotton farmers. US companies are already setting up in India and China for fear the supports will not be sustained. It will become more expensive to use for livestock and fertilizer if it has to be imported.


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

If its imported and expensive, would they bother using it still?


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