25/01/2024
FEEDING
First of all, pasture. Goats like brushes and bushes and even blackberries! They will eat all w**ds and keep your property nice and clean. Goats like to browse under oaks, pine and cedar trees and eat all the goodness that falls from those giants. They will appreciate it if you bring them all fruit garden pruning waste, except plants like azaleas , camelias, lavenders, irises, peonies , oleander and such, anything that is marked as "deer resistant" might be harmful to your goats! In the end of the summer and winter time when there is not much for them on a pasture, you can feed them orchard grass, alfalfa or triple mix hay.
Pregnant and lactating goats ration should be different from your regular gaisers. Breeding goats are almost always busy. They are either pregnant or give us milk. They need to be fed really well all year around, lots of alfalfa, grains, minerals and veggies.
Males diet should be different. We feed our bucks separately. Alfalfa and grains is too rich food for them. Calcium can cause urinary stones (blockage). We feed them orchard grass, triple mix , some alfalfa but mostly pasture. We still give them our morning mix (goat pellets, grains, veggies) same mix as we do for females, but for boys it is reasonably small amount.
Mature non-breeding, animals may be maintained on a pasture and good quality hay alone
Goats will appreciate all your kitchen scraps, but they are not your "garbage disposal" !!!!! Those creatures are clean and noble as they can be! They would not eat anything that is molded, unfresh, stale or laying on a floor. We make our "Morning mix" from vegetable and fruit cuttings: onion ends, banana, potato, apple, beets peels, tomato ends, broccoli peelings, orange peels, garlic skins plus goat pellets and triple mix grains. We also like to add sunflower or flaxseed oil, just a little bit, especially in a winter time, to make our goats healthy and gloriously shiny!