For two straight days last week, my mindset as a goat raiser and breeder underwent a major overhaul as I listened to the lecture on ruminants feeding given by a former Filipino Overseas who has fattened half-a-million cattle in his young life.
Arnel Corpuz, an outstanding OFW who now runs a 600-head cattle fattening facility in Polomolok, South Cotabato and who spent 11 years managing a Wagyu feedlot with a 50,000-head population, totally changed my ideas on feeding ruminants.
In my 16 years as a goat breeder, I have always relied to the available forage and used the cut-and-carry technique in feed both my Boers and my Dairy Goats.
Since the supply and availability of the roughage is not consistent, we have to feed our goats with whatever the boys in the farm could harvest.
So, there would be days when the goats would be fed with Napier, then Trichantera, then Kakawate and even Jackfruit leaves supplemented with prepared milled feeds.
During the lecture series, Arnel said that changing feeds every so often would affect the rumen of the goats, cattle, sheep and carabao.
This would result in very poor nutrition and lack of energy.
His lecture emphasized on the need to consistently feed the ruminants with one specific recipe, meaning if it is corn silage or sorghum silage, that should just be the feeds daily.
This could be supplemented with corn bran, copra meal, salt or molasses if and when available.
He also emphasized the importance of timed feeding, meaning if you feed your goats at 8 a.m., they should be given feeds at exactly the same time every day.
Following the lecture series, I have decided to adopt Arnel’s method and I decided to feed my goats with Sorghum Silage which I believe is better than corn.
I bought Silage Bags from Macondray Plastics in Panabo, Davao City and started filling these with chopped Sorghum stalks and leaves.
Since the first Silage would be ready for feeding 15 days after vacuum-bagging, the goats are now fed with transition feeds consisting of Sorghum roughage mixed with corn bran and salt.
The good thing about Silaging is that after we have placed it inside the vacuum-bags, it could last for up to five years.
All that the boys need to do is just open one or two bags every days, mix the silage with the added ingredients and feed this to the goats.
There will be no more cut-and-stalk and definitely that will end the concept of goat salad as my goats’ feeds.
#farmisthebestclassroom!
#AgricultureIsCommonSense!
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