5 Solid Ways You Can Feed Your Goats and Maintain Good Health Throughout Their Rearing Period
To successfully rear and feed your goats can be one of the most rewarding farming enterprises any intending livestock farmer can ever venture into.
Due to a number of very important factors such as:
- Their hardy nature
- Low cost of feeding
- Prolific nature
- Tasty and healthy meat
- Perfectly rich milk.
If you fully understand the intricacies involved, and most importantly their prolific nature compared to animals such as sheep and cows.
Goats from time immemorial have been known to be adventurers in other words they love freedom.
They don’t like being restricted in a particular confinement, instead, they prefer to move around and fend for themselves. That’s what makes them unique.
In combination with their behaviour, a number of feeds need to be made available for them to perform optimally and stay healthy.
The following feed would go a long way in keeping them healthy and profitable in the long run:
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You can also use shrubs and leaves to feed your goats
As mentioned earlier goats love freedom they love roaming around, browsing and selecting feeds, they don’t like it when they are confined in a particular place.
Rather they should be kept in a large expanse of land that is fenced so that they can graze and browse for their feed within the expanse of land.
You should provide good shade or buildings within the expanse of land so that they can always run to the shade.
In case of any adverse weather condition or at night for shelter from rain or other weather condition that is not safe for your goat.
The expanse of land should contain a lot of shrubs or leaves even fleshy tree trunks.
Goats love to scratch and bite the trunk depending if they love it, and if it tastes palatable to them.
Fending for themselves allows them to have a steady growth rate and select what they want at the same time keeping them healthy.
As a farmer, you can allow the growth of different species of shrubs and plants to grow on your land as long as they are not poisonous to your goats.
Care must be taken to avoid the growth of poisonous plants so that you don’t harm your goats.
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Grass
Deliberate and concerted efforts must be made to plant good and beneficial grass on your property.
For the sole purpose of feeding your goats. Grass such as brachiaria, alfafa etc. These are grasses with an appreciable percentage of protein that are very good for the well-being of your goats.
Particularly brachiaria grass has been found to contain a substantial amount of protein compared to other grass such as elephant grass or alfalfa.
You can plant some of these grasses on your farm to feed your goats, segment the areas or demarcate the place where each of these plants are to be planted.
Allow your goats to graze on the plants in turn, meaning you can be rotating each week or monthly.
Where they graze so that each plant can have time to grow and be ready for another round of feeding intervals.
Utmost care must be taken to avoid overgrazing or overfeeding. Grasses such as brachiaria have high protein content.
It is advisable to allow them to graze for just between 25 to 30m so that they don’t bloat.
But they can graze in areas with alfalfa grass or elephant grass for a much longer period as they don’t have much protein like brachiaria grass.
Summarily don’t allow them to overgraze in a particular area.
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Hay
Hay is one of the most important feeds you can use to feed your goats, owing to the fact that it can be made, and fed to them at all times, especially during the dry seasons.
When the rains have gone and can be made from a number of grasses such as brachiaria, alfafa etc.
It is very good for the well-being of your goat and their survival, At the tail end of the rainy season you can harvest a lot of grass and make hay for your goats.
So that your goats don’t go out of feed even when the rains have gone, and you can as well be supplementing it with other feed.
Feeds such as pellets or whole grains.
Apart from hay made from grass, you can also get high-quality hay from dry leaves of beans and groundnuts they are also very nutritious and good to feed your goats with.
Pelletized Feed can also be used to feed your goats
You can always get pelletized feed at the store, pelletized feed are very rich goat feed.
You can always look for and get the ones meant for ruminant animals such as goats, which are comprised of the following feed ingredients: maize source of energy, soya beans, sunflower or groundnut as so protein, anti-oxidant minerals and vitamins etc.
If you have large numbers of goats you can manufacture the feed by yourself but if the numbers are few it is advisable to buy from any animal feed store to save you time and to eliminate the cost of production.
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Concentrate Feed
Another way you can produce low-cost feed is to purchase concentrate specifically meant for ruminants such as goats.
You can buy it from any animal store and mix it with wheat offal or maize brand, you can even add a small amount of corn to it to increase the energy level.
The concentrates contain premix, protein, antioxidants, minerals vitamins etc. Concentration can be a very good source of nutritious food for your goat.
It is also strongly advisable to always release your goat within a confined area.
So that they can forage and have good fresh green grass to eat to augment or supplement the pelletized or formulated being given to them.
Conclusion:
Goats are excellent browsers, they like selecting their feed.
It is good you allow them to fend and graze for feed from time to time.
It is also very important you engage the services of a qualified nutritionist for some expert advice from time to time.
This will enable you to know the right combination or balanced diets to give your goats.
Also, know when you are overfeeding them or underfeeding them.
In case of extreme weather conditions or vitamin deficiency, it is good you give them multivitamins either through their drinking water or injection.
