# I need some ideas....



## AlaskanShepherdess (Mar 5, 2011)

I need some ideas for providing certain dress toppings and amounts of grain to certain goats. I don't have any in milk so I can't just feed their grain at the milk stand. Two I could get onto the milking stand to feed them their grain individually, but I have two who will not get on the milking stand without assistance from my husband.

I tried tying them all up and certain spots and feeding them each their own individual bowl of grain, but they did NOT like that at all and all it did was scare them and wear me out. Two of my does are pretty skittish. :/

I was thinking about possibly feed bags? I saw a documentary once about herders in Mongolia I believe it was and they fed their goats their grain with feed bags.

Any other ideas that might be easier I definitely appreciate.

Currently my only method is to mix all their grain and top dressings together and divide it between two bowls, but that really needs to stop. I now have some does that are copper deficient, and some that aren't, their herbal copper supplement is given to them as a top dressing to their grain and so now I have to find a way to give the two that are still deficient the supplement while keeping the others out of it.


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## freemotion (Mar 5, 2011)

Do you have any stalls to separate them into?  I feed mine individually once a day and just call them into the stalls, blocking the other goats.  Then I squeeze in with their feed pan.  Do other chores, come back and let them out, then call two more into the two stalls.  The herd queen can get her pan right out with the rest of the goats, as she does NOT share!   They learn their names and the routine pretty quickly.  I learned that there is a certain order that I must respect, and that life is easier if the herd queen is taken care of first, and given a small handful of alfalfa pellets in her pan each time I change out whoever is in the stalls.

It is working with the five goats who all live together for now.


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## Our7Wonders (Mar 6, 2011)

I feed individually too.  I only have two though, so it makes it a bit easier.  I hold their feeders, one in each hand and feed them.  I use the hook over feeders (the same ones I use on the milk stand) - they fit over a 2x4.   Perhaps you could put up some 2x4s and hook individual feeders up, not too far from eachother - but far enough to keep the others from getting into eachother's food.


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## 20kidsonhill (Mar 6, 2011)

freemotion said:
			
		

> Do you have any stalls to separate them into?  I feed mine individually once a day and just call them into the stalls, blocking the other goats.  Then I squeeze in with their feed pan.  Do other chores, come back and let them out, then call two more into the two stalls.  The herd queen can get her pan right out with the rest of the goats, as she does NOT share!   They learn their names and the routine pretty quickly.  I learned that there is a certain order that I must respect, and that life is easier if the herd queen is taken care of first, and given a small handful of alfalfa pellets in her pan each time I change out whoever is in the stalls.
> 
> It is working with the five goats who all live together for now.


I could see this working really well, I have 4 does of my 18 that I call out of the herd every night and pen up in seperat pens, they now their names and come when called. The important part is a routine and doing things in the same order every day.


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## elevan (Mar 6, 2011)

20kidsonhill said:
			
		

> freemotion said:
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I like this idea too.  My goats all know their names and will come when called.  I might have to try this at a later time.  Mine are all currently separately penned due to kidding, size, age or gender right now but in a few months I will have a boys pen and girls pen only, so this seems like a good plan if they know their names to me


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## AlaskanShepherdess (Mar 7, 2011)

Not yet. We are planning on building a barn this year, but even then we won't have individual stalls. Just a kidding stall, kid area, doe area, milking parlor, chicken and quail area, and reindeer stalls (a hopeful eventual addition to our hobby farm)

Our current set up is a goat "house" with a very small pen, with a broken gate. I _could_ try to get one into the house at a time but this wouldn't work that well for me because I have one who likes to very slowly munch on her grain whenever there is herbs in it, and with two goats who are very skittish, it would be pretty time consuming. 

My goats will not just eat out of 5 different bowls. They will fight over one, then move onto the next, fight over that etc.


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## 20kidsonhill (Mar 7, 2011)

"My goats Goats will not just eat out of 5 different bowels"


That isn't just your goats, that is all goats. It is annoying. And as far as tying them to feed them, that doesn't seem to work either. We have show sheep and show whethers and the show sheep eat very well tied up and fed individually, but the goats are very offended when we try this and we gave up and just group fed them.  Group feeding isn't ideal for showing, since clearly one animal is going to be a more aggressive eater than another.  Dog food bowels don't work very well in a group setting, some kind of a long trough would work better, so they can all eat at one time.


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## AlaskanShepherdess (Mar 7, 2011)

The difficulty I'm coming into is that I tailor each goats grain and herbs to the goat. I don't feed regular mineral mixes, I am working on feeding all their mineral needs with whole foods/herbs. Which means some goats will need a certain herb, and another doesn't need it. The only way I have been able to get them to take their herbs successfully is by adding it to their grain. They love the grain to much to not eat it in order to avoid the herbs.  I've tried dosage balls and they just don't work well for my picky goats. 

That is why I have come up with the idea of grain bags, that I tie onto them. They wont like it at first I know, but I think once they realize that is how they will get their grain then I think it will do fine, especially after I have kids that grow up with that as the norm. 

I am hoping though that someone has a better idea.


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