meandk0610
Veteran Member
With the drought this year, hay is less easy to come by, even on the East Coast, so I’m looking at other ways to handle feed. I’m trying to get some of the pasture blocked off soon so that I can broadcast seed some winter deer plot crops that goats should also eat — things like winter oats, turnips, clover, chicory, etc.
I’m also looking at concentrates. I have Nigerian dwarf goats and am not milking. Two does have kids on them, but the kids are plenty old enough to do without milk if the moms dried off (I don’t separate them since we don’t currently milk). Which brings me to my question.
Has anyone used a commodity beef feed for their goats? It’s about 70% of the cost of the cheapest goat feed and about 50% the cost of a usable horse feed (I know some people use horse feed because of the higher copper in the feed). I didn’t have any income for part of last year and had to rack up debt for several months. I’ve been working on paying that down as I can (hard to do while still prepping), but one of my contracts may not get renewed so I’m try8ng to start holding back funds.
Our goats have been our pets and, yes, we did just get another dog (Moo, the big boy mix who does have back dew claws, including one that has two nails but did not get a complete separation in the toe(s)) in large part because of security concerns — we’ve had multiple people stopping by just in the past month either asking about our animals or literally walking our fence line and then coming back on a different day to try to pet our then-current dog to see if she was friendly. So I’d rather not sell any of our goats if I can possibly help it (plus, in all honesty, they are the stopgap if something like in One Second After happens).
Oh, yeah! We do have a new property where we can go cut stuff to bring back in trash bags but it’s about 65 miles each way so that probably will only happen a couple times a month at most until the house is ready for us to start painting and get the animal shelter put up.
Anyone have experience with commodity feed and goats? The ingredient label lists roughage products first, then grain products. I will be mixing it with hay stretcher and possibly some alfalfa pellets if the price doesn’t go up any more.
I’m also looking at concentrates. I have Nigerian dwarf goats and am not milking. Two does have kids on them, but the kids are plenty old enough to do without milk if the moms dried off (I don’t separate them since we don’t currently milk). Which brings me to my question.
Has anyone used a commodity beef feed for their goats? It’s about 70% of the cost of the cheapest goat feed and about 50% the cost of a usable horse feed (I know some people use horse feed because of the higher copper in the feed). I didn’t have any income for part of last year and had to rack up debt for several months. I’ve been working on paying that down as I can (hard to do while still prepping), but one of my contracts may not get renewed so I’m try8ng to start holding back funds.
Our goats have been our pets and, yes, we did just get another dog (Moo, the big boy mix who does have back dew claws, including one that has two nails but did not get a complete separation in the toe(s)) in large part because of security concerns — we’ve had multiple people stopping by just in the past month either asking about our animals or literally walking our fence line and then coming back on a different day to try to pet our then-current dog to see if she was friendly. So I’d rather not sell any of our goats if I can possibly help it (plus, in all honesty, they are the stopgap if something like in One Second After happens).
Oh, yeah! We do have a new property where we can go cut stuff to bring back in trash bags but it’s about 65 miles each way so that probably will only happen a couple times a month at most until the house is ready for us to start painting and get the animal shelter put up.
Anyone have experience with commodity feed and goats? The ingredient label lists roughage products first, then grain products. I will be mixing it with hay stretcher and possibly some alfalfa pellets if the price doesn’t go up any more.