How much hay do goats need for the winter, revisited
Last year, I
estimated we'd need 27 bales of hay to get our two semi-dwarf goats
through the winter.
We actually socked away 36 bales, though, just to be safe.
How
much did our goats actually eat? It's a little hard to say because they
spoiled some bales when they broke into the storage area (and I later
used those spoiled bales for bedding). But I'm guessing they actually
consumed somewhere between 18 and 20 bales.
We still have quite a
few musty hay bales from last year in the main barn (outside goat
reach), and I'm trying to decide whether those bales are worth feeding.
I suspect a normal goat would eat them despite a bit of mildew from the
summer damp...but our princesses will likely get fresh bales instead
while I use last year's hay in the garden.
(And, yes, before you
ask --- that bale in the top photo is straw for bedding instead of hay
for dining. Which isn't to say Artemesia didn't nose around in search
of seed heads before settling back into her newly cleaned barn.)
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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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