How much does a goat need to eat?
I'm starting to wrap my
head around goat digestion, but it's slow going since ruminants are so
very different from any other animal I've ever spent time with. Goats
are especially interesting because they're able to eat really fast,
filling up their rumen, then they slowly digest that food over the
course of the day. Which begs the question --- do our girls need to fill
up their rumen once daily? Twice? Keep it full all day? Or what?
I suspect that the lack
of an easy answer is due to the vast differences in nutritional value of
different food sources. Our girls have been gorging on honeysuckle
leaves for the last week or so, which probably means that Artemesia's
round evening belly is providing plenty of calories. Abigail's belly
never looks as round, but I suspect that's just the older animal's
natural shape since she's the head goat and surely eats quite a bit more
than Artemesia does on an average day.
I'd be curious to hear
from other ruminant wranglers (and especially from others captivated by
caprines). Do you have a rule of thumb for how much a healthy goat
should eat per day?
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Since my goats are not dairy goats and their only function is to eat weeds and make manure, I just picket them. When they have mown down the weeds around their picket, I move them. They are picketed from 8am to 1pm, and then I take them back to their yard. Then they lick their salt, and lay down to chew cud in the sun.
They get upset if I vary that routine, unless it is raining. And they seem to be pretty healthy and happy.
But I don't think that would work so well on dairy or pregnant animals.
Eric - Interesting! I have noticed lately that Abigail wants to go back to the coop around 4 pm even if there's more honeysuckle left to eat. (Actually, 4 pm might be pushing it --- she seems done a little earlier than that.) So maybe I should listen to her and stick to a seven hour buffet.
Out of curiosity, what do you do if it's raining? Leave them in and feed them hay?
Round and round. With the temps going down, even here in florida, the goats should always have that roundness to them. Given the chance my goats will always have that look. The rumen will empty a bit when they go to relax and digest, but then in no time it's back to filling it up. They should never have that caved in look to them. The rumen should Always be full. It's where the warmth comes from,and where the food sits the longest. (this is on a diet of little or no grain! If you feed grains you need to watch out for bloating! If you are heavy on grains you atually want them to look a bit "empty". this is mostly for dairy goats.)
Hay and/or browse should always be available to goats because of their complex ruminant system. After our goats have had their 'fill' of alfalfa hay, they are definitely fuller around the belly. One of my yearling does even sports a lopsided belly (on the left where the digestion starts). I feed flakes of alfalfa hay 4 times a day to the does. The bucks get flakes of mixed hay 3 times a day. Once they finish their hay, they move onto browse. At this time, dry leaves are everywhere, as is honeysuckle and some land cress and dandelion greens.
Grain is in the morning and is in a limited amount. Alfalfa pellets are provided at noon. Beet greens are a treat for them, as are other greens. Browse is always available but goats won't venture outside in the rain and of course, in cold weather, there is less green available -- but more dropped tree leaves. Goats can usually find SOMETHING they want to munch!
A milking doe, or a doe that's pregnant, needs more grain since the body is 'working'. The amount of grain will vary with each doe and your best bet is to simply watch each doe for weight increase and/or milk production. I have read 4 quarts for a lactating doe -- if I fed that much, I would be setting the doe up for bloat!
In general, a milker will provide more milk if given more grain and quality alfalfa hay. I have purebred Nubians that are either SG does or from an SG line so the milk yield is high, at about 1 gallon a day per doe (11-15 lbs). You know the saying: you are what you eat. A dairy goat that is only receiving browse will produce a lesser amount of milk but that milk is essentially 'free'.
With goats and grain, it's better to underfeed than overfeed since grain can cause bloat faster than any other product. If worrying how alfalfa will affect your goat, watch the pellets. Too much alfalfa will show in loose stools, not goat poop pellets. Hope this helps!
My dairy goats forage on a variety of weeds and tree leaves during the day, are fed grass hay in the evening when they are locked in the barn and in the morning are fed their grain/alfalfa ration.
Alfalfa (or some type of legume) is a must for a dairy breed in production. Lacking the calcium they get from it can actually throw them into hypocalcemia, which is often fatal. I don't like to give raw grain. It's hard on the rumen and much of the nutrition is lost, but sprouting the grains just slightly makes them much more digestible and gives them 80% as opposed to 20% of the nutrition.
It's in the alfalfa/grain ration that you get the results in your milk bucket... it should be well balanced, highly nutritious but not over-fed to the animals.