GOAT THREAD, ONGOING
Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 10:42 am
2 Feb, 2016. Happy Chinese New Year everyone. I cant remember for sure, but I think this is the year of the Kangaroo.
Thank you everyone for allowing and encouraging me to write my goat introduction stuff. This thread I intend to be the ongoing goat discussion. Pass on some info, get input from others and visit and stuff. So let’s get it kicked off.
This morning, I am going to expound a little on feeding. I want good healthy goats, so good feed. Healthy doesn’t mean rolling fat, and doesn’t mean half starved. So you try to hit the middle.
I don’t feed mash or pellets or prepared food to my animals or chickens. Nothing against scratch or rolled, and I know they get a little more food value out of it as it passes by, but they do lose some food, and if crushed, it rots. If whole grain, a good chance it will sprout somewhere and they will find it, or it will grow. No laying mash or pelletized blended with antibiotics and protein enhancements. That’s just my choice, not saying others shouldn’t. But for me with 25 hens and two goats and the minihorse, no need, the way I see it.
My two pregnant does, I feed a soup can of grain once a day individually on the milking bench, some mineral sprinkled on. Keeps them in the habit of where to go. And Butterfly, who is a first timer, will know all about the milking stand, eating there, being handled there, everything but getting milked. Should make the actual milking happen a lot easier when the time comes.
So in the morning, the horse gets turned out to graze and the goats get a flake of second cut alfalfa. High grade nourishment for growing babies. Mineral block available always. By the evening, the horse is back in and I put out some good grass hay for them for overnight noshing. And at 830 at night or so, they each get a hand fed alfalfa cube, their form of candy. (OK, I said no processed food, but a treat, well maybe.) Most days, the goats either get a walk with me in the bush so they can browse, or I cut them a few cedar branches to nibble on. Remember, goats are naturally a browser like deer, not a grazer like sheep or cow or horse.
Goats don’t like to eat off the ground, so I have two hay feeders. One is a home made hay net. 2 ft x 3 ft picture frame sort of thing made out of 2x4 with chain link across it, hinged to the wall of their shelter, about 2 ft above ground level. I put the hay in this so they can pull bits out of it. I like this better than the ground or a manger, as not near so much ends up wasted.
The second place is a little feeder I made. Kind of like a small doghouse. Four sides of plywood about 2 ½ ft high, slanted roof/lid made out of corrugated iron, on hinges so I can lift it up and put hay in it then drop the lid back down. (If you decide to build something like this, use heavy plywood and lots of screws and 2x4 framed, because the goats will jump on and off this twenty times a day, it needs to be skookum.) Holes in three sides, about the size and shape of a toilet seat inside measurement. Only one can get its head in that port. This arrangement makes it hard for them to run each other off the food. If they want to eat, they have to put their head in and cant push the other one. (If small number of animals, one more port than you have goats is great.) There is another similar opening instead of the oval, a keyhole. Same purpose, but the neck is confined after they reach in and lower the head to eat. I don’t like this one, and it sort of confines them and they can be blindsided by a more aggressive doe.
So this morning, I go out to do chores. Let the horse out. Feed the grain. Feed the hen and chicks out of my hand (I love that part.) Let the chickens out. Go to give the goats their flake of alfalfa. And I look around, and there is hay on the ground under the wall feeder, getting tromped in. Similarly alfalfa on the ground. Not just from today, it has built up over some time. I guess I just hadn’t noticed.
Old stockman I knew said that if they cleaned up everything and the ground was bare dirt, you weren’t feeding them enough, and they would be going downhill. If they were pulling it out bunches and dropping excess amounts on the ground and walking on it, you were feeding too much. So I guess I have been feeding too much. Well, the girls are with child. But I think I will start to cut back just a pinch. I don’t want over fat animals but I do want them well nourished.
I guess its sort of like paying taxes. You want to do all that you have to so as not to be in trouble, but no more than is necessary.
Thoughts, input, comments from others? Goatlady? Others? Lets get this going.
Thank you everyone for allowing and encouraging me to write my goat introduction stuff. This thread I intend to be the ongoing goat discussion. Pass on some info, get input from others and visit and stuff. So let’s get it kicked off.
This morning, I am going to expound a little on feeding. I want good healthy goats, so good feed. Healthy doesn’t mean rolling fat, and doesn’t mean half starved. So you try to hit the middle.
I don’t feed mash or pellets or prepared food to my animals or chickens. Nothing against scratch or rolled, and I know they get a little more food value out of it as it passes by, but they do lose some food, and if crushed, it rots. If whole grain, a good chance it will sprout somewhere and they will find it, or it will grow. No laying mash or pelletized blended with antibiotics and protein enhancements. That’s just my choice, not saying others shouldn’t. But for me with 25 hens and two goats and the minihorse, no need, the way I see it.
My two pregnant does, I feed a soup can of grain once a day individually on the milking bench, some mineral sprinkled on. Keeps them in the habit of where to go. And Butterfly, who is a first timer, will know all about the milking stand, eating there, being handled there, everything but getting milked. Should make the actual milking happen a lot easier when the time comes.
So in the morning, the horse gets turned out to graze and the goats get a flake of second cut alfalfa. High grade nourishment for growing babies. Mineral block available always. By the evening, the horse is back in and I put out some good grass hay for them for overnight noshing. And at 830 at night or so, they each get a hand fed alfalfa cube, their form of candy. (OK, I said no processed food, but a treat, well maybe.) Most days, the goats either get a walk with me in the bush so they can browse, or I cut them a few cedar branches to nibble on. Remember, goats are naturally a browser like deer, not a grazer like sheep or cow or horse.
Goats don’t like to eat off the ground, so I have two hay feeders. One is a home made hay net. 2 ft x 3 ft picture frame sort of thing made out of 2x4 with chain link across it, hinged to the wall of their shelter, about 2 ft above ground level. I put the hay in this so they can pull bits out of it. I like this better than the ground or a manger, as not near so much ends up wasted.
The second place is a little feeder I made. Kind of like a small doghouse. Four sides of plywood about 2 ½ ft high, slanted roof/lid made out of corrugated iron, on hinges so I can lift it up and put hay in it then drop the lid back down. (If you decide to build something like this, use heavy plywood and lots of screws and 2x4 framed, because the goats will jump on and off this twenty times a day, it needs to be skookum.) Holes in three sides, about the size and shape of a toilet seat inside measurement. Only one can get its head in that port. This arrangement makes it hard for them to run each other off the food. If they want to eat, they have to put their head in and cant push the other one. (If small number of animals, one more port than you have goats is great.) There is another similar opening instead of the oval, a keyhole. Same purpose, but the neck is confined after they reach in and lower the head to eat. I don’t like this one, and it sort of confines them and they can be blindsided by a more aggressive doe.
So this morning, I go out to do chores. Let the horse out. Feed the grain. Feed the hen and chicks out of my hand (I love that part.) Let the chickens out. Go to give the goats their flake of alfalfa. And I look around, and there is hay on the ground under the wall feeder, getting tromped in. Similarly alfalfa on the ground. Not just from today, it has built up over some time. I guess I just hadn’t noticed.
Old stockman I knew said that if they cleaned up everything and the ground was bare dirt, you weren’t feeding them enough, and they would be going downhill. If they were pulling it out bunches and dropping excess amounts on the ground and walking on it, you were feeding too much. So I guess I have been feeding too much. Well, the girls are with child. But I think I will start to cut back just a pinch. I don’t want over fat animals but I do want them well nourished.
I guess its sort of like paying taxes. You want to do all that you have to so as not to be in trouble, but no more than is necessary.
Thoughts, input, comments from others? Goatlady? Others? Lets get this going.