The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: cuckoo on August 17, 2013, 09:42:47 pm
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Hi All,
When calculating how many animal units per hectare / acre - should you include acreage left for growing hay therefore effectively reducing the stocking density.
How many goats would you allow per hectare / acre taking into account wanting to produce your own forage
Thanks
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Never done the calculation and I am guessing your talking dairy goats - I would work on 5 like sheep then if you need 5 months of hay reduce to 3 - I'm sure someone will come up with an accurate formula
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With goats there is no accurate formula...............it does depend a great deal on the quality of ytour land.
Also whether you house the goats at night............most of us do.
Bear in mnd, goats don't eat grass like sheep.............possibly 40% less as they prefer 'rubbish' i.e. weeds, hedges etc.
I have grazing across 14 acres, 40 goats & 4 horses and we still have plenty of grass. The topsoil here on Dartmoor is thin so cannot be classified as good ground for grass.
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...be sure to include the hedgerows they jump into when bored of grass!
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As you can keep goats quite well without ANY grazing I don't think this calculation has ever been done.
The majority of dairy herds are kept in large barns and fed on hay all the year round. You will need to feed a good amount of concentrate anyway if you want a decent amount of milk.
Mine don't really graze much by now, but just mooch around outside. They get a huge laod of branches every night and new hay... so much better than the grass right now!
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Mine are yarded so I have no idea. I feed concentrates to keep the milk yield up and hay all year round. It's not ideal but I don't have a field to put them in and, in any case, I feel that they are happier with some access to outside.