goat and lamb pasture

[Robyn8]

Hi there,
We are still in the planning stages to officially start our herd this spring! We're planning to start with two pet Nigerian dwarf goats from a local dairy, and 2 market lambs for 4H, so the lambs will only be with us from April to end of August. I realize they have different mineral needs and will either bolus the goats with minerals or feed separately while we have the lambs. We are planning to build a 0.5 - 0.75 acre pasture split into 2 parcels to help with vegetation growth. We are in SE MI and the grass grows very plentiful in that area now, and there is a little man made mineral lick from our sump pump run off that the deer love. Anyways will that be enough space to play and not kill the vegetation? We have space to build another pasture if we expand the herd, but with the cost of building housing and fencing, we are hoping to get by on a smaller amount. We are limited to 8 large animals total due to our zoning, so we'll never have a huge herd.
Thanks for the advice!

 

[mysunwolf]

I think your market lambs are going to end up eating much more of that pasture than your dwarf goats! I would say that you should be fine with that mount of land, but have a good source of quality, inexpensive hay as a backup plan in case they start to graze it too short. Then you can pull them off the land and put them in a pen with hay until your field(s) recover.

I agree with you on minerals, it's not hard to feed sheep minerals free choice to everyone and then bolus the goats with copper a few times a year. Then when the sheep are gone, you can put out goat mineral for them.

 

[Robyn8]

Thanks for your input! I don't mind adding hay as needed. We already get some for our rabbits so it shouldn't be hard to stock up on more. Guess I should plan for a pen or some temporary fencing we can use if they are starting to kill the grass too much.

 

[Latestarter]

Remember that virtually all goats are browsers and most sheep are grazers. Goats will eat grass, but they much prefer bark/leaves/twigs/woody weeds/ivy/briars/your favorite shrubbery-landscaping plantings and flowers/and whatever else they can get their mouths on. Sheep graze & love grass but some also like to browse and like goats, will destroy whatever you don't want them to eat. You really should plan to have hay available for both 24/7. It doesn't need to be expensive... an orchard grass hay or just basic hay should be fine. You can always upgrade to alfalfa if they need higher quality stuff later.

If you have fence lines that you can tether the goats & maybe sheep as well, along (weeds/shrubs/brush) they'll pretty much be in heaven. If you have any young trees that you wish to survive, you need to fence the goats away from them (goats & sheep climb so make sure there's an adequate stand off) as they will strip the bark, girdling the trees and kill them.

 

[Robyn8]

Thanks for the input! Yes I was planning to provide hay and grain as needed but just wanted to make sure I had a big enough pasture that they wouldn't turn it into a dirt lot. With where it will be and how close to the road on the one side we have to keep it with vegetation to meet the zoning. There's really no planted anything near there. It was once all grass that the previous owners got tired of mowing and let grow out to tall grass and weeds.

 

[Latestarter]

Sounds like sheep and goat heaven! What I would do is put both together in one side and when it starts looking stressed, move them to the other one. If the first hasn't recovered by the time you need to move them back, then simply pen them out of both and feed hay until #1 is ready for them again.