Anything other than hay?? HELP!!

[Milk n' Honey]

OK, we are about 5 round bales shy for the winter or we'll have to get rid of 7-8 goats. I probably should get rid of some goats but I'd like to see the kids born first. Prices on goats right now are probably awful. Is there anything I can do to make the hay last longer so I maybe won't have to buy more? We have 13 round bales still in the shed. Our hay guy didn't come through for us like he said he would. I hate to pay too much for hay. Thanks a bunch for your advice.

[DocM]

Alfalfa pellets. Browse. Pasture. Horse complete feed.

[vicb66]

Leaves?I know my girls absolutely love the branches we pruned from the oak and maple trees.See if you can get your neighbors to bag up their leaves for you.

[oceanmist]

hmmm garden trimmings? Turnips/ beet pulp/ pumpkins/ squash...

if you are in a rural area or have a town near by go door to door and find out if someone would allow you to trim their trees or take their trimmings off their hands.. beware of any wilted cherry branches...

of course that only counts if you don't have any of your own browse available... make them goats work for you! You could even "rent" them out to a neighbor or two...

hoping things work out so you can keep them all,

Misty

[Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians]

Introduce everything really slowly...

Cottonseed meal if you have this in your area...Rice Bran is 13% protein, fat and roughage. Hay pellets, alfalfa pellets.

Animals coming into winter in poor shape can't live let alone be bred during a cold winter without energy. You don't get alot of energy from hay, only while they are ruminanting it. The poorer quality the rougahe the more you have to supplement it with better products. They can eat more of better quality roughage, so you don't have to supplement it. Might think about if you are going to use straw, poor hay or leaves etec...putting out a protien/mineral block for them....put it out for about 20 mintues a day then increase....but don't run out and then add a new one. Vicki

[Filas are Prima]

I don't know about goats, but horses do just fine with WHOLE oats. The whole oats have the bulk of the oat hulls. So the delima of over packing the intestine with grain is hugely mitigated by the bulk of the hulls. Feed lots in Texas will have long feed troughs filled with whole oats for the cow horses--who are over in the corner group tail swishing flys, instead of pigging out at the trough.

[Feral Nature]

Filas, goats do well if whole oats are a very small portion of their diet. They need mostly hay or browse for roughage, grain overload kills them.

Milkn'Honey, I would like to go out on a limb here and suggest you cull down the number of goats you have and perhaps reevaluate your management, pens, barns. You have many posts with sick goats, dead goats, wormy goats. Perhaps with all these issues right now you should carry as few as possible through this winter. tend and feed the select few and start a great herd from those you keep. It hurts me when i see you struggle with perhaps too many goats to properly tend. I have been there I think we all have. Yes, there are certain ones you still want to see babies out of but they have to be alive to do that. How many goats do you have? Can you cut the number by 1/3 or 1/2? If not, your herd will be very large by spring. Larger than it is now and you are struggling to learn to be a good goatkeeper. But if you cannot get a handle on basic husbandry, you will lose kids this spring and the whole point of keeping certain does will be moot.

[mpillow]

I get something called "Hay Stretcher" by Blue Seal. Large pellet high in calcium about 12% protein. Protein licks are very well liked by my girls too. They get one for Christmas each year...

[southerngurl]

Pine needles. Pine trees stay green all winter, so they are good to use. They can eat quite a bit of them, just start in slow if they aren't normally eating them. Cut down a few branches and they will have a blast.

[PlowGirl]

Soy hull pellets and beet pulp are great alternative sources of fiber. If you have a feed mill in your area, they're probably already using the soy pellets in their milled feeds. This will stretch your hay further. Fed alone, the soy pellets will cause loose stools. I haven't fed beet pulp solely, so don't know about that. My area just got out of 2 years of drought, so I know what you folks are going through right now. Limit feed your hay and use the soy-hull and beet pulp for the real filler, rounded off with alfalfa pellets and whole oats and you just ought to make it. If it were me, I'd unload all of the growing stock right now. What resources you have right now would be best put to use in simply maintaining adult livestock. Good luck.

[Milk n' Honey]

I think you all are right.

Feral Nature - I told my husband that we needed to cull. We don't have enough hay and it will cost several hundred more dollars to get enough. The babies that we'd have off the goats we'd cull won't pay for the hay to get them throught the winter. I suggested the culling to my husband. I think that is what to do. My buck isn't a buck that I want to use again either. I have 4 kids and 3-4 adults I could live without. I need to come up with a couple more to unload and then I think we could be OK. I told my husband that I thought we had too many. It is easy to do. I had no idea that we'd have this hay crunch. Figures. You are right, we'll have kids all over and at least double the herd size and then I'll have all those to take care of. Overcrowding could be the problem with the parasites. It is my believe that we should have half the goats we have now. We lost a couple and one is going to butcher next month. There are three kids we don't need and like I said....3-4 adults and they are bred. Well, thanks for the advice. I think I knew the answer but just needed to hear it.

[fishhead]

My goats really like nasty old jackpine. It's so full of pitch I hate to handle it but they love it. I cut down a 12' jack and threw over the fence for them. They had most of the needles gone in 2 days after eating alfalfa during the day and grazing on grass in the evenings.

They'll eat white pine but not until the jackpine is gone.