Goat-Info.com
Disclaimer : I am not a vet. Although I may suggest medications, dosages,
and treatments for animals, you should always have a vet, use a vet, and
consult a vet.
HOME |
|
When it comes to feeding goats you will get a thousand different answers.
For someone who is new to goats this is very confusing and frustrating.
What is the right answer? There is not a right answer per say, but there
are some basic guide lines in my opinion. Here I am going to talk about
feeding does, bucks, and wethers. However, there are a few things that
are the same across the board. Hay, minerals, and fresh water are a must.
These are the very basic necessities of a goat. Is my goat in good
condition? Is my goat healthy? The quickest way to answer these
questions is to shave your goat. Shaving a goat is very telling as to the
condition of your goat. The following will consist of my experience here
at our farm, and what I have learned through the years of trial and error.
Does
Don't dairy goats look thin? NO! Yes they tend to show a little hip
but never their back bone and ribs. The condition of your goat prior to
breeding, and during pregnancy means everything! It may (not always)
determine the number of kids a doe can carry, and certainly has bearing on
the health of the kid once it is born. The condition of your doe during
lactation can make the difference between a average producer and an
exceptional producer. It also makes a difference when it comes time to
breed your doe back. Has she recovered from the pregnancy and lactation?
Those of you who may be women who breast fed your baby can attest to
this you know first hand how taxing it is on your body. Imagine having
twins, triplets, or more to tax your already heavily taxed body. Would
you have any teeth left? (joke for women).... Needless to say (but going
to anyway), what you put into your goat is what you get out of your goat.
There are many ways to achieve proper condition but this is what we have
found that works. As I stated before the base ration of Hay, Loose
Minerals, & Fresh Water are a must regardless. The next question is grain
or no grain, and how much grain. So where do I start? Nearly all brands
of goat feed recommend 3.3lbs of grain/100lbs of goat. This is where I
would start. If your does are getting too fat on that, back it off a
little. If they are too skinny on that add to it a little. Use common
sense!
Bucks and Wethers
I am lumping these two together because they are primarily fed the same
with a couple of differences. I hear people say all the time that bucks
and wethers should never get grain. It just isn't true. There are risk
of urinary calculi, however if you are feeding the appropriate feed to
them you should not have a problem. Bucks and wethers alike need to be
fed a feed with ammonium chloride in it. Ammonium chloride is a urine
acidifier this keeps the crystals from forming if you have an imbalance in
the goats diet for one reason or another. Can wethers and bucks do well
on hay alone? Absolutely! They can thrive on a diet that is hay based.
Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself. Is your buck working,
about to work, or just finished working? (By "working" I mean breeding
does) If you answer yes to those questions your buck probably needs a
feed ration. As far as your wether goes it is completely dependent on the
goat and his housing situation. Is he strictly a pet? Or is he a
companion for another "working" goat? If he is a pet you may very well be
able to feed him hay alone, however if he is a companion it will be hard
to feed him separately so I would simply feed with the proper feed and let
it be.
General Feeding Ideals
IMPORTANT!
In the paragraphs above I talked about feeding "grain" (My definition of
"grain" is a pelleted feed). I also talked about feeding hay alone. Here
is why I would not feed hay alone. If you are feeding hay alone you are
assuming that each bale of hay you get came from the same place(it might
have). You are assuming that each cutting has the same basic composition
(i.e. nutritional stats). So what happens when your hay just isn't
cutting it and you need to put weight on your goats? "Grain"! If you are
already feeding "grain" a simple increase will do the trick. If you are
not feeding "grain", then you need to introduce "grain" slowly. Anytime
you change your goats diet you are risking an adverse reaction! Why take
the chance? I know "grain" is expensive. Not so. You can feed a less
quality of hay and add grain with very little increase to your feed bill.
When you begin looking at hay as "roughage" and grain as a "regulator",
you will begin to have a very manageable herd. When using this method it
is so much easier to manage the "condition" of your herd. As your hay
quality changes, so does the feed requirement. When you have lactating
does, you add more feed. When your bucks are working, you add more to
their ration. When your wether is being a companion for a buck that just
finished"working" it isn't a big deal.
Additives And Quality
Feed
Additives
- BOSS(black oil sunflower seeds), Beet pulp, corn, kelp, oil, and
anything else you may be adding... We have tried most of these at some
point in the past trying to pump up a low quality feed. What we have
found is that these are really not needed when using a "High Quality
Feed". We have tried nearly every brand out there, and we have found ADM
feeds to be far superior to the rest. Noble goat would be my distant
second choice. Do we add anything to our feed? Yes we do, for "show
prep" and for late pregnancy/ lactating does. What do we add? We add a
"calf manna" type product and alfalfa pellets to our regular pelleted
feed. However, this use of these additives are only for does that we are
asking a lot out of. Generally the majority of our goats do not require
these additives.
Here at our farm we raise Nigerians. The cost for "grain", hay, and
loose minerals is (as of 07/19/2011)$135/head/year. That is 37 cents a
day. Come on people that is not much. |