10/25/13, 09:03 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2012
Location: Idaho
Posts: 2,287
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For vitamins, you may be able to buy the powder or gel vitamins to add to their feed or feed directly. Loose minerals free choice are important for goats and most of them also contain vitamins. Green feeds (grass, browse) are high in vitamins, but if you live somewhere that's cold in winter, or have to dry-lot your goats, you may need additional supplemental vitamin A, E, and D.
Most dairy goats need a source of legumes in their diets for the calcium and protein content. Usually, that means alfalfa, but there are others. In some areas of the country, alfalfa hay is not readily available, but alfalfa pellets usually are, so a lot of people feed alfalfa pellets in addition to the hay they can source locally. Some weeds are okay and actually benefitial. As long as the hay has a good leaf:stem ratio (was cut early enough to not be super stemmy), and was baled at the right moisture so that it isn't moldy but hasn't started losing nutrient value, you should be good to go. A hay test can tell you the exact nutrition in the hay, if you are interested. Around here, that runs about $15 per test (usually one needed per type of hay-say you had different kinds or different cuttings of the same kind, or even bought from different farmers), and that includes someone coming out to sample the hay-they take samples from several bales at once).
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Nancy Boling
Frosted Mini Goats
Alpine and Nigerian Dwarf goats
2 Jersey heifers
1 guard llama
And whatever else shows up... 
http://www.swfarm.net/
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