Teff Hay????

[OneCuteShasta]

Has anyone ever fed there goats Teff hay? A farmer near me has it for sale. I emailed him and he said it's a type of hay just like timothy or orchard grass.It is a warm season grass also known as "Love grass". It is planted after wheat as a second crop and usually yields 1-2 cuttings. I did a quick search on the internet about it, but basically found that people like to feed it to their horses. Any opinions?

[Mrs. Jo]

We've used teff before. It is a very good hay, but is more like a grass hay. We used it in combination with a really good alfalfa hay. The goats liked it as I recall.

[OneCuteShasta]

Then that would work out great for me. My goats pick through their hay and only eat the grassy parts. The rest goes to waste. Do you know anything about the protein? I've got a doe, a buck and 3 wethers.

[Wags]

Teff has a high concentration of different nutrients, a very high calcium content, and high levels of phosphorus, iron, copper, aluminum, barium, and thiamin. Teff is high in protein too.

1 cup of uncooked Teff grain has:
708 calories
15 grams fiber
25.7 grams protein

Minerals:

Calcium 347mg
Iron 14.7mg
Magnesium 355mg
Phosphorus 828mg
Potassium 824mg
Sodium 23.2mg
Zinc 7.0mg
Copper 1.6mg
Manganese 17.8mg
Selenium 8.5mg

Hay would probably be less in all of the above categories by weight.

I used to live in Ethiopia and Teff hay along with Garbanzo's were what was fed to the Emperors horses.

[shiandpete.1]

Cool Wags! I love what I learn on this forum.

[OneCuteShasta]

So this hay would be okay to feed to goats?

[Wags]

Yes it would be ok for goats - if the grain heads are still mostly intact then you need to watch for signs of them having too much protein.