Feeding of Goats

Goats are good converters of household waste to meat. They feed on grasses, hay, Cassava peels and a host of other feed.

In order to cut down on your feeding costs you could grow your own hay and any grass clippings can easily be made into silage by stuffing the cuttings into fertilizer bags as tightly as possible. Weigh them down with old tires or the like and leave them until they have started to ferment. Then use for feeding your goats.

To prevent overfeeding of grain, only give in small amounts after they have fed on plenty of grass or well-cured lucerne hay. If you can, place each goat in a separate feeding stall with its own feed making sure that it only eats what is alloted to it.

A goat's digestive system can also be upset if changes to the diet are made too rapidly. So make slow changes and make sure that you feed your goat at the same time each day.

Clean drinking water should be available at all times and the container should be scrubbed out regularly to get rid of any algae that might have formed as goats again are fussy, and will refuse to drink from a slimy trough.

Finally, when raising goats, if you have put your goats out to pasture make sure that the grass that you are feeding them is not too lush as they will end up with bloat if allowed to eat such grass for more than an hour a day. It is just too rich for their systems and they will get sick as a result. Ideally the goat should have access to leaves, branches and tough grasses to make up the essential vitamins and minerals important in its diet.