Forage-based dairying with goats

It can be done. They don't *have* to have grain. However, you simply cannot throw them out onto a pasture, even a rotated pasture, and expect them to produce well. What I would recommend is to supplement the forage (rotated with plenty of time elapsing to prevent parasites) with alfalfa or other good leafy legume hay, or alfalfa pellets. Stock beets, roots crops, and other fresh feeds (squash, pumpkins, etc) also help.

The book Goat Husbandry talks about this- and frankly, the older versions are better in that regard.

I feed just enough grain to get the girls on the milk stand.Iv'e read all I could on the benefits of pasture raised anything.And it seems to work very well.
The meat and milk both contain way more omega three than the bad omega six,plus carotene.(a cancer fighter)The grain fed animals are too high in omega six.
I was hesitant(no way at first to hang for a week) to kill my first two goats for meat.So i had a slaughter house do it. And I cut, wrapped, and froze myself.Anyhow the guy was sceptical when I told him about pasture only.Now he's a believer.He said the meat was super tender and more than enough fat to cook with.One was a year old and one six months.
Allow the pasture to get up to six or seven inches before grazing it.I have two large pastures and four smaller ones to rotate.
They also get lots of sweet corn stalks and pumpkins that don't sell in the fall.
I had gone organic in all but the wormer but now have a good source of diatomatious earth for parasites.
The cows and horses also take some worms out of the system.I mainly have to worry about the ones they share!
Also found out the hard way, when using horse wormer double it for goats!!!
And yes I'm keeping the best growers and culling the ones that are not easy keepers.
I have lamancha/boer cross and looking into some kinder crosses.
Chas

I am working with some LaMancha / Boer crosses and really like what I see so far with the few I have.

I have purebreds of each breed, for milk and meat, of course, but the mixes are the best of both worlds. The have the calmer dispositions of the LaMancha and also seem to inherit the soft voice. Of course they have the outstanding milkability, even when mixed with Boer, and they are so much more meaty than a pure dairy goat. In general, they are born with very short ears (won't freeze off in the north!) with only the occasional one having long ears. That is great for us becuase we love the looks of the LaMancha breed. Very destinctive. It is especially nice to get a red-headed white bodied, meaty earless baby. Down here in Texas and a few other places, we are calling them "LaBoers".

Because of the terrible drought, we are probably very soon gonna sell all the cattle. We very well may fence everything in for goats and try a plan similar to what is suggested here. A forage based goat operation. LaBoers. We shall see.

__________________
Diane Rhodes
Feral Nature Farm
LaManchas, MiniManchas and Boers

I like that LaBoers.
I had one that has long ears that stand out like airplane wings and one that stands straight up curving in.
They really milk well and the Easter babies at 35/40 lbs.brought 50/55 $ at the auction.
I like the size of the babies better than the purebreds!
Chas

If you have the right type of land, and enough of it, you should be able to make it all work. I would suggest a milking barn in the center of a number of paddocks. Have all the does kid in early spring, which is when there is the most available grass. Alfalfa-grass mix would be good, high quality feed for the goats, but alfalfa cannot be grazed often. Therefore, I would recommend a birdsfoot trefoil, and grass mix. For the grass, I would recommend tall fescue, reed canary grass, and kentucky bluegrass all mixed with the birdsfoot trefoil. The grass most adapted to your grazing patterns is the one that will survive. Do not graze below three inches before rotating to the next paddock. The goats should move through a paddock in two to thee days, and there should be a two-week rest period on each paddock before it is used again, longer during summer months, when growth is slower. I would have 8 paddocks that you constantly rotate through, and two that you stockpile for use when you are low on forage. these two should be planted to birdsfoot trefoil and tall fescue, which both hold their quality well. Again, don't graze too low on these either, because the growing points for new shoots on birdsfoot trefoil are at the base of the leaves. For winter feed, you can have another field with a shed. Grow corn, and stockpile it for winter. (do not harvest) Only hand-pick the corn ears from the plants when they are hard and dry, and keep them aside. If you can, crack the corn somehow to make it more digestible. Graze the goats on the cornfield, and divide the amount of corn by the number of days between last grazing and first new grass. (after a hard frost, you can graze all of your paddocks down to one inch. Topgrowth dies anyway.) This corn divided by days is the daily ration of grain for your goats (This is not cheating, it is forage, kind of like feeding silage, but with less work. If you did not hold back the corn, that is all that the goats would eat until it was gone, and they would likely get sick. Silage simply includes the grain, and is still considered a forage.)

If you have any other questions, let me know!

justgojumpit

I'm encouraged to see that other people are thinking along the same lines! Perhaps someday there will be enough of us to develop our own breed registry!

Last time I brought this up here, several years ago, I mostly got naysayers!

Kathleen

I use grain only on my kids under 6 months - they are 'meat' breed - Fainting Goats. My 'forage' fed wether won against some boer crosses at a big show in TN - so I daresay we're doing just fine. Key is to have a forage test done. If you have the appropriate forage/pasture/browse whatever you want to call it - go for it. Toxicity is just as dangerous with grain if you have more than adequate nutrition.

Idea is to be sustainable - don't put more on your resources than you can keep.

Check out ATTRA - http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/dairygoats.html - that is their specific sustainable doc on dairy goats. You probably could apply for a grant to study intensive grazing/browsing WHATEVER you want to call it lol - for dairy goats.

Not only is it possible, it's probable that you can do this - you can also look at making extra $ from milk (if you are looking to sell) by using Organic or Certified Natural certifications - if you are doing 'pasture' 'browse' (again whatever you're going to name it lol) you don't have to worry about 'organic' grain sources, etc.

Good luck, and you CAN do it!

Andrea
www.gotgoaties.com

Interesting thread. Haven't got goats, but do milk my suffolk ewe. I'd always grained her in the past, but she got loose and into a big barrel of grain last fall. Since then, I've been a bit hesitant to offer her as much as I had in the past.

I've always heard that lactating animals should have grain for optimum milk/weight gain. Last year she got a couple pounds a day of grain. She twinned, and the twins gained a pound a day on her milk.

This year, grain is a treat, she's lucky to get more than a handful a day. Her ewe lambs are still growing at a pound a day! So, grain or not, she's producing the same type of milk, and her ewe lambs are gaining just as quickly as the boys did last year. She's not thin, and has been eating alfalfa with a little bit of grass.

So, there's my little homestead experiment with grain vs pasture/alfalfa! I'm sure you could apply it to goats as well.

__________________
Mustang Diaries

"It's called a lance...hellooo!"

I don't think grain is for optimum milk production. It's more to keep weight on, especially for does who are very heavy milkers. I think the alfalfa has a lot more to do with milk production then the grain does.

Grain is needed to provide phosphorus to balance the calcium in the alfalfa. It also provides some added calories, but with plenty of forage and good quality hay, and a good mineral supplement, it shouldn't really be necessary for good health.

Does from really high-producing lines aren't going to be suitable for forage-based dairying, any more than Holstein cows are.

Kathleen

I completely agree - you aren't going to succeed with breeds that have been 'selected' for grain feeding - the more 'commercial' breeds. I'm unsure of dairy goats - but with other specie of livestock, there are some breeds more suited to the production 'on less'. It's all about using your resources wisely, and not more.

I'm sure if you culled strongly you could develop your herd for ultimate production.

Andrea

Bumping, so the people talking about percentage Boer bucks can find this thread.

Kathleen

We are milking commercially so are trying to keep the does in good condition and milking decently(not pushing them, but we would like them to hold their own), while spending as little money as possible. Our 65+ does are able to browse on 50 acres of brush, pasture and woods, they also get either alfalfa hay or alfalfa pellets twice a day(whichever I can get). And they get grain(oats/barley/corn/BOSS)while they are on the stand. They only get what they can eat in the time it takes me to milk them so its not that much. I'd rather feed as little grain as possible, but I have to produce milk to fill our tank or I have to sell the goats.....So they do get *some* grain. I will be milking twin LaBoers next year. It will be interesting to see what they can do as their dam is one of my best milkers. I am keeping kids out of my does that milk and stay in good condition on a sparser diet. I am really looking forward to freshening the kids from this year next spring.

__________________
Emily Dixon
Ozark Jewels
Nubians & Lamanchas
www.ozarkjewels.net

"Remember, no man is a failure, who has friends" -Clarence

Just a thought.....If you are thinking of crossing milk stock with Boer to get a better forager.....I would try a dairy buck over Boer does.....You should get the traits from the Boer doe, but more milk because the buck is dairy.....just thinking aloud here. Seriously though, if you pick for easy-keeper traits, you can buy and raise full dairy stock that keep condition and milk well on mainly forage and hays.......I have several.

__________________
Emily Dixon
Ozark Jewels
Nubians & Lamanchas
www.ozarkjewels.net

"Remember, no man is a failure, who has friends" -Clarence

There isn't two folks on this board doing the exact same thing with their dairy goats, they are that diverse. So to say commerical goats, or show goats or pet goats can't do this or that simply is not true. I know I come at this differently than some, but I have to make money with my stock. So the idea of taking away their grain (unless I had to) would mean less milk, and less profit. The money outlay in your dairy goat project is not grain and hay....now this is from someone who spends $8 per 50 on her milkstand grain and just under that for the free choice alfalfa pellets they get! It's not the cost of grain and roughage....it's labor. The idea I am going to milk twice or three times as many goats so I don't have to buy a sack of oats is not happening. That I am going to move the herd into all these different areas once a week twice a day? Most folks with lofty ideals of farming, have never done it twice a day every day to even have an opinion. Most folks like this are customers, who want you all organic, and if you feed grain could you feed it just sprouted? Yeah right! It's fine to run herds like this when you have cheap labor, and sadly it's usually the family children, or 5 goats for your own family milk and some extra for soap or cheese making. You might even turn a few other homesteaders onto the idea of buying your goats because they come from a farm who does this grass fed...or forage fed thing. But in all classes of livestock, the money is in registered purebreds. Using a boer buck (with their horrible feet and extra teats) on a dairy goat you then plan on milking the daughter of? You don't sell for good money goats who are thin, crossbred, extra teated, or a diary goat milking 3 pounds of milk a day. And nobody wants to milk 3 goats for 10 months when they can buy one goat and grain her for the same amount of milk.

You could supplement with oat hay. But to truly take away her minerals, take away her calcium from her alfalfa, and raise a goat on true underbrush, some hay that is gathered for the winter, and water? First unless she is raised like this from a baby, in true calcium defficency, the metobolic stress at kidding would be huge, you would kill down most of your best milkers and the does who carry triplets and quads (the phenomon that happens at new dairies) Yep she had better be part Boer so she isn't a walking skeleton. It takes alot of calories to make milk, and the calories do not come from hay or forage, it comes from grain.

I love it when folks say that it isn't natural to do this and that with ruminants, yet they feed a sweet mineral What isn't natural for ruminants is to acidify their rumens with molassas.

Throwing out the baby with the bath water to have a more natural herd isn't necessary. The Considines have a mower that mows the pastures in long strips, it is blown into a wagon that is then brought into the barn, the goats eat this forage everyday off head holds through the side of the wagon...but yep they get grain (whole oats) on the milkstand when in milk.

The more natural diet everyone can do for their goats is to ditch all the sweet feeds. Alfalfa pellets in the barns, some good grass hay if you don't have forage for them, and whole oats on the milkstand and the last 50 days of pregnancy. I feed one can (12 ounce coffee can) of grain whichis mostly whole clean oats morning and night to my milkers) Finding a good loose mineral, usually for cows is the iceing on the cake. Clean water and a cozy place to live when it rains. The rest is just gravy, it's unneeded. Vicki

__________________
Vicki McGaugh
Nubian Soaps
North of Houston TX
www.etsy.com/shop/nubiansoaps

A 3 decade dairy goat farm homestead that is now a retail/wholesale soap company and construction business.

LOL! Vicki, I wondered if you were still on here!

I don't think, though, that you read the previous posts very carefully before you responded. Nobody was talking about taking away ALL grain, or keeping goats without minerals or even without hay! Only about minimizing the inputs -- cow dairy people are doing it, and making more money than they were before they switched to grass dairying! (I think you were one of the people who told me before that it couldn't be done, LOL!)

As for moving the herd to fresh pasture twice a day, I've done it once a day (when we had sheep) and it really wasn't any trouble. Twice a day wouldn't bother me a bit.

My half Boer doe has excellent conformation (she was an unplanned breeding out of a reg. show Oberhasli doe when the Boer buck jumped the fence), a decent (not wonderful, but decent) udder, good feet, no extra teats, and she's presently milking 12 pounds a day -- not spectacular, but certainly respectable. And, she grazes, as in she eats grass, which is something most straight dairy goats won't do! She's also a very easy keeper; right now I'm giving her about three pounds of grain a day -- all she'll eat -- and she's doing fine. They all get all the alfalfa hay they can eat, and have access to loose goat minerals at all times, not to mention fresh water. I know I'm feeding them right because they each had one more baby than I expected, and big healthy babies, to boot. I have had ZERO health problems with any of the goats I have now, which says something, I think.

Also, the people who are grass-dairying cows have far less health problems than the confinement dairies. Nobody is talking about taking poor quality animals, throwing them out in a brush lot, and expecting them to produce. You have to give us some credit, Vicki -- I've been raising goats for over twenty years, and others who have responded here have also been goat-keeping for a long time. We aren't total idiots, truly we aren't! :baby04: I certainly don't think I know everything, either -- I learn new things all the time -- and one new thing I've learned in the last year or so, since I bought the Boer cross doe, is that Boer genetics are not such a bad thing, in moderation and with careful selection. (How do you think Boer babies manage to grow so fast, if their mothers only give three pounds of milk a day?!?)

I don't think people who breed reg. dairy does should feel threatened by what we are talking about here. There's room for all kinds of things, and if some of us like, and want, part Boer milking does, there's room for us to do that. Since my surplus babies are going in my own freezer, it doesn't much matter how well they'll sell, though there is a good market for meat goats, and they do make good meat goats.

Kathleen (used to be in NH, now in Oregon)