meat goats/pasture

[Anderson farms]

How many nanny goats could I put on ten acres of really good grass? My wife is thinking about getting into goats. Kinda running numbers. Also what to look for when buying goats? Should we get bred nannies or raise up some bottle babies? Thanks for the help

[Goat Servant]

First of all, goats are more browsers than grazers.

My favorite rule of thumb is that when you find a place you want to buy from (after doing lots of research & shopping around) is that all the goats are bright eyed, move with ease, healthy coats and try to convince you to bring home more than you intended.
The breeder should freely provide lots of info without you having to figure out what to ask next. If you think you want to by from them, visit other breeders. Go back a few times before you make a decision.
I bought 1st time does who were bred a few months before I brought them home.

[mygoat]

Please research their care and diseases first. They are not animals to get into lightly. They require specific care and nutrition that many people (especially vets) are ignorant of. Learn feeding, fencing, diseases, kid/kidding care, basic care, etc. Then learn conformation, showing, weight gain etc...

If you're looking for a meat herd, bottle raised kids or bottle raising has little place in your herd as it is time and resource consuming and often doesn't allow for quickest/best weight gain. The resulting herd will, in general, be flighty and unfriendly but that is the way with most meat herds.

Bright eyed and good coats do not mean that the herd isn't carrying CL/CAE. Ask for proof of testing for at least CL if you're getting into meat goats... CAE isn't usually a concern in the meat world.

as for how many you can fit... quite a few but keep in mind you want to have pastures to rotate them onto to benefit the most from the land and cut down on worm loads. You want them to eat the most browse and not have to provide hay or grain to them as little as possible. If you're in it for meat only, profitable animals should be your number one concern and therefore you must squeeze the worth out of your land as much as possible. If you maintain proper pasture and number of animals, you may not have to provide hay or grain for an entire summer.

[Alice In TX/MO]

My goats will not eat grass.

[Goat Servant]

Mygoat made some exellent points...healhy looking goats do not mean they are Cl or Cae free.
But then agian, if we knew all the trouble it was to raise human kids we would never do it.

[collegeboundgal]

my goats have 24 hour access to brush and even they will sometimes eat the grass. especially right now when that's the only thing growing. but goats really do like the multiflora rose, the hedge and thorn trees, the blackberries, and all the little plants that I have know idea what there names are.

-Melissa

[fishhead]

My goats pig out on knee high quackgrass but they also have access to golden rod and a wide variety of other weeds and willows.

[DQ]

how many per acre is very dependent on your lands particular property. most numbers for average browse and pasture I've seen range around 5 goats per acre. most meat herds that I have encountered are stocked on pasture not browse areas. my thinking on this is that pasture provides more lbs of feed per acre than "most" mature woodland browse situations. just look at a mature woodland area and you will notice the vines and small bushes but the ground is mostly bare. I fence off 16x16 areas around browsy areas and put 4-5 goats in and they are working on the bark on the trees in a few hours . although the browse is more nutrtitious the grass is more plentiful and loves to be "mowed down". eating down the grass won't harm it, in fact it helps it thrive. its a very complex problem taking into account more much more, including parasite problems on pasture, versus possibly better econonomics regarding how many goats per acre you can stock. additionally if you plan to keep and milk high producing dairy goats you can anticipate supplementing them with concentrates regardless of how much land they are on, and some people choose to dry lot them and bring all their food to them. in which case you need only be concerned with having enough space to excercise and prevent overcrowding and keep problems such as drainage under control. if I could choose I would understock on browsy areas.