The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: gingercloverbramble on April 22, 2011, 11:26:13 am
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My sons Pygmy goat lives with two pet sheep.
They are in a sizeable paddock at the moment and having a great time running around and playing.
The warm weather we have had lately on the west coast of scotland has suddenly brought the grass on.
My question is should the goat be restricted in his access to the grass?
Obviously the sheep are happy to graze all day but will our goat try to keep up and end up with bloat?
What does everyone else do when the spring grass is coming through?!? ???
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My goats always , even in summer have hay available. They are locked in at night with hay so never are let out to gorge on grass. I find they prefer roughage to fresh grass any way and have never had a problem even though the grass gets good and long. My goats are too lazy to eat all day and just lay in the sun or play so I presume they self regulate their intake
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Mine don't graze that much - the grass can get quite long in their paddocks. They always have hay, which they seems to prefer (to grass, actually they'd prefer to browse through my garden :D). So I don't think you need to restrict access.