HAY AND CONCENTRATES
The basis for your goat’s diet will be hay, pasture or browse or a combination of these. Goats are browsers
(like deer) by nature. While they will eat grass if nothing else is available, their preference is to eat a wide variety of
vegetation such as weeds, leaves, bark, berry bushes, etc. When feeding hay, choose a good quality grass hay that is free
from dust and mold. Hay must be provided in feeders that do not allow the goats to climb into the hay. Once hay is soiled,
goats will not eat it. The absolute best feeders we have used can be found on the Premier1 website. Plans can be printed or downloaded from their site. Goats will need to be supplemented with hay during the
winter months. If your goats are on pasture, it is also a good idea to feed them some hay every morning before letting them
out to graze, especially in the spring. This will help to prevent them from gorging on rich spring grasses which could cause
them to bloat. We feed our goats essentially free choice, keeping hay in front of them all the time. We also use concentrates
(also called grain, pellets, feed, etc.) as part of our goat’s diets. How much we feed depends on the goat’s age,
condition and sex. Our dry does get no feed at all. Pregnant does get one pound of feed daily during their last month
of pregnancy, lactating does get up to three pounds of feed and kids get free choice creep feed. Bucks get one pound of feed
daily during rut. We feed a pelleted feed to all of our goats. Our kids and lactating does get an 17% protein goat feed
with rumensin (for coccidia prevention). We also use this as our finishing feed for meat animals. Our bucks get a 12% protein
goat feed with rumensin. Does in milk who need a little extra fat get black oil sunflower seeds (BOSS). On occasion,
we use Calf Manna as a top dress for those kids and/or does that need a little more protein in their diet. Make sure that
there is enough space at the feeder for all of your goats. Goats can be greedy and pushy at feeding time and the smaller,
less dominant animals can easily be pushed aside by the larger, more aggressive ones.
MINERALS
All goats need to have
a mineral mix available to them free choice. We use a variety of products to provide our goats with the minerals they need.
The first product we use is a loose mineral, Sweetlix 16:8 Meat Maker. This is left out free choice for our bucks. In addition,
we use the same mineral in block form for our does and kids. We prefer a block for the does and kids, they seem
to stay cleaner than the loose mineral. Plain baking soda is also made available to our goats. Baking soda helps
to buffer their rumen, aiding in digestion and helping to prevent bloat.
Put out only enough of all of these loose products
to last a couple of days. Goats will not eat them once they are “old”. By leaving out only enough for them to
finish in a couple of days, you prevent waste.
Last but not least, you must provide your goats with fresh clean drinking
water at all times. You can use anything from plastic buckets to water troughs made for livestock.
