We read the article on vinegar in chicken and goat water and are convinced. We now would like to know how much to use. We have both chickens and goats as well as a yearling milking shorthorn calf and are new to "farming".

-- Jean Hamilton (scotth@narrows.com), November 19, 1999

Answers

we used vinegar(apple cider vinegar not the clear white stuf i think that should be saved for cleaning) anyway we used vinegar in our goats drinking water for a number of years.i felt it helped in their milk production as well as the flavor, as far as the amounts we started out with only about an ounce or so in their 5 gal water tub.(goats are a little picky about their food and water taste)then gradually increased it over a few weeks to about a cup.actually after we were doing it awhile we just poured it in without measuring , i think the goats liked the flavor so they drank more water and gave more milk we eventually went from the vinegar to a vit./mineral supplement that does about the same things that the vinegar and i don't have the waste each day as i dump the water to give them fresh...hope this helps....ron

-- ron (ron@hotmail.com), November 20, 1999.

Ron notes that goats are picky. Interesting. It is (or at least was) common to add vinegar to the water given goats at shows, because the water tasted different than the water at home. The goats seem to like the vinegar, and it masked the different taste.

The amount doesnt seem to matter much. Ron adds a few ounces I add a cup (or so) to 5 gallons. But not every day. Ron is probably right.

And hes certainly right about cider vs. white vinegar!

-- jd (belanger@midway.tds.net), November 23, 1999.

Hi, We are milking 2 goats, the older one always gave less milk, (about half) of what the younger one produced. So after reading about vinegar, I decided to experiment by giving 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar every morning to the older goat only. My 8 year old son Aram (who does the milking every morning and every night) measured 2 tablespoons into a small cup, and I open the goats mouth while he pours the vinegar in. Right away we noticed a increase in milk production from the old goat. Now after doing this for several months, the old goat is outproducing the younger one. She gives us twice the milk of the younger goat. Needless to say, we are going to start forcing vinegar on the young goat too. But as she is pregnant, I am waiting for the kids before we make her give us more milk. We are new to living in the country. My wife and were raised in the city, I grew up in Montreal, Canada and my wife is from Los Angeles. But after reading an ad about countryside in a gardening mag, I ordered it to see what it was all about, and it changed our whole life. We moved to a small town, (Sanger, CA) on 15 acres (18 months ago) and started doing what we read about in the Countryside. Hope my experience with milking goats helps you. Sam Hajian

-- Sanadroug Hajian (sbhajian@prodigy.net), November 25, 1999.