I got so many responses before and i have another question so here goes! I have dairy goats that run on about 2 acres of pasture, and about 3 acres of woods. I first got them about 18 mos ago and it was cold weather so of course i fed them hay everyday. well here comes summer and the pasture is lush and the woods are full of good things for them, but they don't leave the barn. about the middle of summer my husband asked why i continued to feed them hay when everything else was out grazing. truth is, i don't know! they never left the barn, they didn't get any excercise that i ever saw. So i stopped feeding them hay, and by george they left the barn and spent alot of time in the field and woods. so my question is, if they are being milked thru the summer, should i still feed them hay - and how much? when i stopped feeding them so much hay, they cried and begged for a few days before they went outside - really made me feel bad!

-- Susan (dsowen@tds.net), February 01, 2002

Answers

Response to should i feed goats hay in the summer?

It depends on how many goats you have, the kind of grain you are feeding, and the quality of the pasture. I don't usually feed hay at all in summer, until just before a goat show. Then I get tem used to the hay so it won't be such a shock to them. But between parasite problems and a growing number of goats and not enough land, our goats haven't been growing as well as they used to. I think I'm going to start feeding alfalfa hay in the summer. What you could do is to give it at night, after they have come in from the pasture.

Maybe it is just my goats, but when spring comes, my does are just itching to eat the new grass. They pick at the hay and look wistfully over the fence at the pasture. When I let them out onto it, even the big, huge bellied does, that have been plodding all through winter, rear up and cavort around in joy. What a funny, heart warming sight they are. :)

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), February 01, 2002.

Response to should i feed goats hay in the summer?

When there is plenty of grass and graze, and it's not raining;), I turn mine out, and just give them a little hay in the evenings.

Now that we are living further north, we are spending a lot more on hay.

-- mary (marylgarcia@aol.com), February 01, 2002.

Response to should i feed goats hay in the summer?

My goats turn into barn potatoes also if I keep feeding them all the time there. They started to just sit back and wait for fresh hay 2 times a day so now I lock them out of the barn and large corral in the morning and let them in at night. (They do have another shelter in the field - just with water and minerals in it) They actually come into the barn at night full so my hay is lasting a long time! Yeah!! They will fuss and cry a bit at first but don't give in. :)

-- shari (smillers@snowcrest.net), February 01, 2002.

When we had goats we fed them hay 2 times a day. They never grazed. The milk was not goaty that way.

-- Hank (hsnrs@att.net), February 01, 2002.

In order to obtain the quality of milk and production in dairy goats you should feed hay. It all depends on your goals, some folks are not concerned about milk production and showing so they tend to not get involved in good dairy herd management practices. Others do. its all a personal preference and what you hope to obtain. Our goats have browse and are fed good quality alfalfa hay, grain and minerals, and lots of othe rgoodies. But then we have a dairy and I breed for milk production and show quality. I couldn't afford to NOT feed hay. The better the management program the more milk production and quality of goats you obtain. Poor nutrition stunts goats as kids, I have seen many folks wonder why they have small goats, or goats that don't grow as well, its because of nutrition. nutrition is the key. But sometimes you need to teach the goats to browse as well. you may have to take them to the source.

-- Bernice (geminigoats@yahoo.com), February 01, 2002.