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Free Choice Minerals

1631 Views 8 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  MellonFriend, 
S
Does anyone currently use Advanced Biologicals 12 free choice minerals? We just brought home our first 4 kids last week and our breeder has been using them with no health issues for her herd for 2 years. We are using them in our mineral feeder we set up with 12 different slots and the goats eat the minerals they need when they need it. Does anyone have any experience with this? Just curious as I’m sold on the health benefits. We also use Molly’s Herbals for preventative worming as well.
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MellonFriend
@Jubillee uses a free choice individual mineral system and has had great success with it so far. Here's her thread on it. Go to the last pages to see her awesomely shiny goats. Anyone feed individual minerals :)

I think that feeding individual minerals is an awesome idea and anyone who has the ability to do it should. There isn't scientific evidence that supports the idea that goats can know which minerals they need, but I've only heard great results from those that do the individual mineral system.
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S
Thank you so much! I will take a look at the thread you recommended.
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Jubillee
Hi. We use the ones from Free Choice Mineral. Theirs is a 20 mineral system. I went with that one as it's what the people I followed used but also in the FB group about mineral buffet systems, the people that have tried both prefer FCM.

I absolutely love it. We've been on it for 4 months but I had been looking into it for over a year. It's just a big start-up cost (that I shared with a friend and we split the initial order). But the benefits are great. I'd been struggling for a while balancing things and just was not happy with the constant maintenance and the money spent on supplements. I shouldn't have to be supplementing animals so much you know? It was eye-opening when I first put it out. They ate a LOT of sulfur and zinc and then hit the selenium, boron, and the vitamin mixes fairly hard after that. Recently we went through a lot of silicon. They have leveled out pretty good now though. I am happy with how they look and I haven't had to supplement ANYTHING in the 4-5 months we have been on it. My main test will be breeding and kidding season though.

FCM has some of their research on it listed on the right. Some interesting reads.
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Calistar
Jubillee said:
Hi. We use the ones from Free Choice Mineral. Theirs is a 20 mineral system. I went with that one as it's what the people I followed used but also in the FB group about mineral buffet systems, the people that have tried both prefer FCM.
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That's good to know! A breeder had linked me to the ABC one and I was going to be researching the differences between the two. Do you know why people prefer the FCM one? Obviously it sounds better because it has more minerals, but was there a reason beyond that? From the tiny bit of looking into things I did (which hasn't been much, with my schedule!) it looked like the FCM one was more expensive but had much larger bags, like 25 lbs instead of 5 lbs or something?
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Jubillee
Multiple people said it was more cost-efficient. FCM was easier to work with, faster, easier to get products. Better as far as the minerals didn't cake up as much. I haven't seen caking except in magnesium. With our humidity, the mag gets like a dang rock. Some also said that the goats would blow through the ABC ones, assuming because some had alfalfa in them? I haven't looked really into the extra ingredients in theirs.

FCM though just lost their truck driver (health reasons) and now has to ship third party. So that may affect price now too which stinks. I will still use them because I like them and I'm already on it.

But if anyone wants to see more stuff on them or to find others nearby to go in on a group buy, THIS is the link to the FB group.
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Jubillee
Thought I'd share too...someone made this neat feeder with coffee cans.

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S
Thank you all for such helpful info...I’ve been doing so much research lately that I’m even dreaming about minerals😂 We will continue to use our ABC minerals as they shipped so quickly to us and the goats are doing great so far. I’m curious to see how they do when I eventually breed them.
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MellonFriend
Let us know how they do! 🙂
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