Posted by Nat on February 12, 2002 at 21:15:06:
In Reply to: Re: Cutting grain befor kidding? posted by Pam on February 12, 2002 at 04:35:25:
On the cutting back part, and dealing with milk fever, its shown that if your doe or cow is on a high calcium diet BEFORE she gives birth, it really increases the chances of milk fever.
When the diet before kidding is high in calcium - ie. if you're feeding alfalfa hay (big no no to bred does) the doe is use to pulling her calcium from her gut - from the feed. When she gives birth, there is such a demand for calcium in the blood stream that it isnt met from the food anymore, and the body isn't use to pulling it from reserves (ie bones) so she lacks calcuim in her blood stream, and becomes a downer animal because you need calcium for proper muscle function - hence the shakes, ect with milk fever. The muscles get delpeted of CA++ and can't function right :-)
Hope this makes sence, I confuse even myself sometimes, but thats how it was explained to me before
~nat~