Feeding goats grass silage

[seanmn]

In the book Raising Dairy Goats the Modern Way author Jerry Belanger explains a procedure for using grass from mowing the lawn and bagging it up and making grass silage for feeding goats....Has anyone ever tried this? and if so how has it worked?

[seanmn]

opps I think it may have been the book raising dairy goats successfully

[fishhead]

He must be doing something to keep it from molding because I've seen grass clumps heat up and begin to mold in just days. I would think spreading it out to dry would be safer and probably preserve the vitamins and protein better.

[AllWolf]

I would never do that. Gosh gas fumes from the grass can be deadly to goats.

That is all I'm saying

Good Luck with your goats.

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

I know the Considine family mowed their feilds daily for the goats. The grass was blown into a wagon that once it went into the area with the goats had slats for thier heads, they got their fill of as much as they wanted, got new grass mowed the next day as along as it was not wet out.

With goats being soo sensitive to mold, listerosis, the silage idea for them, unlike for cows who seem to thrive on less than perfect foodstuffs, isn't a very good idea, unless you know a whole lot about silage, good and bad bacteria and innoculation of bacteria into it. It's a whole lot more up at the cow dairies I visited in Minnesota and Iowa than just bagging grass clipplings Vicki

[moonspinner]

Everything I've read says not to feed silage to goats.