Poisoning with solanine, a vegetable poison, can cause serious problems for dairy animals. Therefore, adding raw potatoes to their feed should be wise and careful.
People who keep dairy goats and cows are unanimous in the opinion: you can feed animals with raw potatoes. You just need to carefully examine the tubers, they should not have green spots, sprouts and rot.
Caution - Solanine
Sometimes veterinarians call the cause of death of goats or cows poisoning with solanine, a substance that is contained in potatoes and serves as the natural protection of the root crop from insects.
The substance belongs to poisonous glycosides and is found in all plants of the Solanaceae family. You can eat tubers containing 0.05% solanine. Almost all potatoes normally contain just that much dangerous substance.
Solanine is found under the skin of a potato and is found in large quantities in its sprouts. An excess of corned beef can be guessed by the green color of the skin of raw potatoes. Unripe potato tubers are also harmful to human and animal health.
How to avoid animal poisoning with solanine
That is why experienced breeders warn young breeders about the dangers of feeding goats and cows with raw potatoes. The risk of poisoning is reduced significantly if potatoes are given to animals peeled. Solanine is also destroyed by heat treatment. Therefore, boiled potatoes are completely safe.
But dairy goats and cows love raw potatoes as a treat. Such feed increases milk yield and is simply useful for animals. Animal owners need to inspect tubers carefully before feeding livestock. If the potato has a normal skin color, there is no rot and sprouts on it, it can be fed to pets. A few handfuls of raw potatoes will delight the cow and goats, and the owners will drink more milk.
Rumors that potato starch clogs the udder ducts seem to livestock breeders to be just fiction. Villagers believe that the more varied the pet diet, the tastier the milk will be.
Goats and cows love a variety of raw root vegetables, but eat only as much of them as they need. The rest remains in the feeders. Animals happily eat raw beets, pumpkin and cabbage. Dairy pets also readily consume greens.
But the addition of food additives to the feed does not always seem reasonable to the owners. Many goat breeders notice a deterioration in milk taste after this. That is why it is better to feed animals with natural food and drink tasty milk, fortunately, village life provides such an opportunity.
