How much feed?

[OSUman]

Hi, Im thinking about getting some goats to keep the grass down in my pasture since i no longer have any cows and also to keep the predators away. I am wondering how much I need to feed goats a day if they have access to TONS of grass. I know Ill need to feed more in the winter but I am just wondering how big of an investment it will be.

 

[SDGsoap&dairy]

It will depend on a few factors like breed, age, open/gestating, dry/lactacting, quality of forage, time of year, etc. I'm sure lots of seasoned folks can weigh in on this, but my dry/early gestation nigerian does are getting a maximum of 1/4 cup (dry measuring cup) of grain per day right now. I have one that won't be getting any grain at all until late gestation. On the flip side, our nubian needed around 10-12 dry measuring cups of concentrate (grain/alfalfa/BOSS mix) per day during early lactation and was still stripping some condition.

We don't have ours on pasture. They get grass hay, alfalfa blend hay, and fairly limited time to browse on a couple acres of mixed deciduous woodland.

 

[cmjust0]

If you're strictly looking to keep pasture grass down, I'd probably go with sheep over goats. Sheep are natural grazers, whereas goats are primarily browsers. They'll trample down a good stand of fescue to get to a blackberry bush or a big stalk of ironweed. Not a very efficient model if the goal is to have your grass kept down.

Goats don't do well on pasture, frankly. They'll eat it, but since they're not really *designed* for it, they don't seem to have much natural resistance to the internal parasites which complete their lifecycles using grass. The biggest nasty of that bunch is the barberpole worm and they're DEADLY to goats. Controlling barberpoles is a huge, big, enormous, gigantic problem to people raising goats on pasture.

 

[glenolam]

I'll also chime in and say that goats aren't very good predator deterrants, either. They attract them more than scare them off.

Sheep or goats, you'll want to invest in a LGD or donkey/llama specifically bred for protection if one of your main goals is to scare off predators.

 

[OSUman]

I would use the goats to knock down the grass which would intern deter the predetors that i have. I was thinking about getting sheep but i noticed that you dont get alot return on sheep compared to gats and that was one of the reasons i was leaning towards goats. I do have sheep at easy acess so i could just do that
Thanks

 

[cmjust0]

Problem is, it's impossible to know how much $$$ has gone into raising what few goats are making it to market in your area.. It's one thing to get $100 for a 60lb slaughter kid, but if you had to run $20 worth of meds through it to keep it alive...not to mention the time and aggravation...it really starts to cut into the bottom line!

Really, it sounds to me like sheep must work well in your area if lots of other people keep them. I'd probably go that route if I were you.

 

[OSUman]

Problem is, it's impossible to know how much $$$ has gone into raising what few goats are making it to market in your area.. It's one thing to get $100 for a 60lb slaughter kid, but if you had to run $20 worth of meds through it to keep it alive...not to mention the time and aggravation...it really starts to cut into the bottom line!

Really, it sounds to me like sheep must work well in your area if lots of other people keep them. I'd probably go that route if I were you.

Ok cool, the reason I have easy acess to sheep because my 4-H leader raises them and is a high up in with clubs and such soo..

Thanks for all of the info

 

[churchx3]

I have a pygmy and a nigerian both girls approx 7 months old...I am currently feeding them hay, 1 1/2 cups of grain each per day, and they run the yard about 3-4 hours a day eating what they want...how badly am I overfeeding them?

 

[glenolam]

It all depends on age/size and whether or not they are bred...

 

[churchx3]

It all depends on age/size and whether or not they are bred...

They are both approx 7 months old and no they are not bred.