Pasture raised vs Pen raised

[Doug Hodges]

This topic was and still is being talked about extensively on a Facebook post. People are saying they buy fat healthy animals that crash on their farm because their goats are on pasture and the ones they bought were grain fed. I can see that and I've been there. Right now I have plenty of pasture and browse and I'm not feeding anything except mineral and a little grain on the milk stand. Some of my goats are getting fat. Some are maintaining. We had a bout with bad feed this past winter and had a nightmarish month or so but that's another story. What do you do? Do you do the kids different than the adults? Is browse and pasture enough for growing kids at the 6 month to 1.5 year stage? Thoughts?

[mygoat]

A well managed pasture situation very well might be adequate, but those are few and far between IMO. I always found it interesting in sheep management, they rely almost completely on pasture for EVERYTHING - no supplemental feed at all and they grow faster and bigger than goats do, that's for sure.

Personally, we pen our kids because that's the resource we have available. We didn't raise any kids out this spring, but next year I'm hoping to change our kid pen situation and I haven't quite decided how I"d like to do it. Because we bottle raise, our convenience is really important in management. I've never had them 'crash' on pasture, we toss them out in the main area they take right to it with the does. No one that's ever bought from me has had them 'crash' on pasture. Quite the opposite - they are tickled with the freedom of going out to graze.

Personally, I'd test the waters with some meat wethers before seeing how your doelings grow. I *hate* dry FF'ers so personally I wouldn't risk a doe kid not making weight their first year with such a big change in management. Plus, if you're raising on pasture, it's like free meat.

I feel like even if we pasture raised our kids, I'd make my dad go down and feed them some token grain or alfalfa pellets, just to make him go down and pay attention to them - otherwise he's less likely to notice a sick one, and they're not going to stay as tame.

[Woolieface]

I let my kids on browse/pasture just like the adults. No trouble growing or gaining weight. No grain needed, but I let them have a tiny amount just to get them accustomed to the routine of being penned and fed in the morning like their mothers. I can see how an animal raised as grain fed might seriously suffer if they were suddenly purchased and put out on pasture, though. That's a big change and their metabolism is used to the way they were raised.

[Clovers_Clan]

I pasture and dam raise. I have an extremely low stocking rate and plenty of true browse. IMO grass pasture alone doesn't cut it. Bucklings growth rates decline after weaning at 3 months if I don't supplement grain. So I keep doelings on mammas to continue nursing as long as they will allow, I don't feed them grain. I pen at night for morning milking. I've had no issues with doelings not being big enough to breed at 7 months. Pasture management is so subjective. Feed rations are balanced and measurable. I think a lot of people fail on pasture because they are not knowledgeable enough about the quality of their browse and reasonable stocking rates. And if there is no rotational grazing plan in place, much of the nutrition goes into feeding a constant and/or recurring heavy worm load. There is a much lower risk with dry lot and hay/grain management.

[NVMEinTX]

We are new to goats having gotten two does this last March and at first we fed them alfalfa pellets with mineral included (I don't know what that technical term is, we just poured their minerals in with their feed). My husband would let them out in the very late afternoon and they would browse. We would get them back in their pen by feeding the pellets but more and more their buckets would remain full until we noticed they just didn't want to eat their pellets anymore and they were loading up on browse, of which we have a TON.

I was worried about their nutritional habits but they seem to be growing well. Nubian X Sanaa and Nubian XAlpine, they are sisters from the same Mister , 6 weeks apart. I looked at pics from when we first got them at 3 months and 6 weeks, respectively and as a point of reference they are happy, healthy and growing.

We supplement free choice minerals and baking soda but their bellies always seem to be jolly fat from the browse and not from bloat. The downside of letting them free range is they poop like slot machines all over our patio, swimming pool deck and pool house and we are getting over run with flies. Now they are curious and push their way to look in the pig feed bucket but they still turn their noses up to the alfalfa pellets.

So pen raising-we've spoiled them by letting them have free reign of the 2 acre house property ( we don't let them out to the front acreage) is not what we are practicing now- but we're going to have to start putting them back in for some time periods because the poop bonanza and fly festival is driving me bonkers.

[terri9630]

Try using a bit of sweet feed at night to put them up of they give you trouble. As for the rest, fence off where you don't want poop and enjoy them getting their own "free" food. Save the alfalfa pellets for winter. Or summer depending on your local climate. I'd feed the minerals free choice separately. They will eat them as needed. We use fly bait around the house and barn to help control flies.

[kasilofhome]

My goats roam thru 80 acres. Roses, fireweed,Timothy(planted in 100 by 50 patches). Dandelion stands, cranberry stands..and willows. any thing they want. From green up to snow. Salt licks covered and out with one where they sleep. Same for the goat mineral blocks.

When the browser goes... the clean up large picked gardens of cabbage, korrobie, etc till pumpkins come in the it's store broam, Timothy, and orchard grass hay. With broam hay pellets out as well.. they choose. Grain barley on the stand.

[Farmer Jayne]

Out of necessity my goats are pen-raised. I had one customer who bought a year old buck. When they got it home, he and a young doe that they purchased at the same time from someone else got loose. When they found them, both goats were sick from eating ornamentals at a neighboring church. They were able to nurse them back to health, but it was scary. I think that being pen raised caused both goats to go nuts when they were free and had all the browse they could eat. They had never learned what plants not to eat from the rest of the herd and just went hog wild.

[Woolieface]

I'd guess that if you plan to pasture raise, it would reasonably be best to purchase kids who had been raised that way, and purchase pen raised if that's the future plan. Though poultry is a far cry from goats, I've noticed that cage raised chicks do not fare well in my free range flock....how and what to eat is learned early in many species, probably.

[Buckles]

My pasture raised goats grow at a much faster rate than pen raised goats. I have a friend that pen raised goats and when she weans the kids off the mother at 8 weeks they are scrawny and don't have any horns. My baby kids horns start showing at 4 weeks when they are in the pasture.