Does anyone know what goats like for treats? I mean REALLY like. I'd like to encourage my Pygmies to come over to me more often. I feed them Goat Chow which they like but I want to really get there attention. Thanks!

-- Amy Sabino (seansabino@hotmail.coma), June 28, 2001

Answers

Response to Treats?!

I'm a new goat owner but have found mine love honeysuckle over anything else. Someone on this forum in an older thread said they call it "goat candy!"

-- Elizabeth in E TX (kimprice@peoplescom.net), June 28, 2001.

You might try cattle range cubes. They would be easy to hand out one at a time. The one summer I had four sheep they loved them, but I did have to break them into smaller pieces.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), June 28, 2001.

Black Oil Sunflower Seeds. It is what I use for the children who visit the farm, and I keep them in my chore jeans. Since they have that nice shell on them they are a nice roughage, with a good protein 14% and fat source inside. With so much roughage to them it would be pretty tough to overdue it. We will have 30 preschoolers here and thats an awful lot of little handfulls! I also took them to big fairs for all the kids to feed the goats, never a digestive upset. Course the girls also like cottoncandy, especially stollen from screaming little kids! Dorrito chips, and cheese crackers are also tops! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), June 28, 2001.

Oh my..... you're asking the queen of spoiling goats here.... i give mine cookies, bananas, watermelon, spis of my drinks... make that juice or tea. Bananas are good for goats. Cookies seems to win their hearts though, especially homemade.

Bernice

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), June 28, 2001.

Bernice, that is so sweet:) I'll have to bake some cookies for my Queen Buttercup, my one doe that I milk, 'cause she just tolerates me but I want to be loved:)

-- Elizabeth in E TX (kimprice@peoplescom.net), June 28, 2001.

My fainters love (and I mean LOVE) bananas, but their all time favorite treat is tortilla chips. They'll just about knock me over when I come by with a bag.

-- Mary S. (1deal@quik.com), June 29, 2001.

a few handfuls of field corn.

-- April (atobias@yahoo.com), June 29, 2001.

Mine love peanuts in the shell, cooked pumpkin rinds, sunflower seeds, and now Hi Ho crackers (my husband shared his with them at a show!) Most of them also like carrots, watermelon, and apple to name a few.

-- Leslie Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), June 29, 2001.

All our goats love animal crackers. Other things that they like for treats are vanilla wafers, bananas, bread and apples. Another inexpensive treat we have just discovered that they like is homemade popcorn. But animal crackers still tops their list.

-- Trisha-MN (tank@Linkup.net), June 29, 2001.

Hard to tell mine are spoiled brats .We have a grocery that saves old produce they get just about everything melons, carrots , lettuce, peppers , grapes , apples , peaches .Then I have a bakery that saves day old bread , pies and cakes. They love them all !

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), June 29, 2001.

I think my girls are partial to sugar cookies, although they like my ginger cookies too. They also love bagels. They go positively squirrelly over fresh tree branches. They eat the leaves and strip off the bark. They love pine branches so much that I can drop a 6 foot sapling in and have it stripped in half an hour (that's with 2 does and 1 ewe that are well fed). They had bolting spinach and yellowing parsley tonight, and you'd of thought I'd brought caviar!

-- Sheryl in ME (radams@sacoriver.net), June 29, 2001.

They seem to love cereal esp. fruit loops , cookie crip , apple jacks & honey nut cherrios. Also cookies , chips , cheese puffs , cheese crackers , candy , saltine crackers & more. We even got one that eats pickles & pineapple lol.

-- Joann (justbreathe@graffiti.net), June 30, 2001.

My Lily loves tomatoes. She's the only one who likes them. Those small Roma tomatoes. She sucks them in whole and just loves them!

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@msn.com), June 30, 2001.

I think everyone has covered what I use, even more! A friend from another site is forwarding some Blackoil Sunflower seeds...so I can't wait to try those!

-- Lorna Stuckless (clstuckless@thezone.net), July 01, 2001.