The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Goats => Topic started by: lizzypeg on July 11, 2014, 10:43:02 am
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i have 8 pygmy goats who are in a decent paddock and have access to weed/grazing 24/7.
they have a sheep field hay feeder that i keep full of hay also 24/7.
they are going thru a small bale of hay every 5 days as just eat that rather than browse.
if i dont keep it topped up they scream blue murder every time they see a person..
any ideas on how to slow down the hay eating and make them browse more...
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Stop giving it to them and ignore their screams??
Sorry no experience of pygmies, but they can't eat what's not there.
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Why are you feeding any hay at all this time of year?
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Because otherwise they'll scweam and scweam until they are sick! ;D
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i feed hay as i think they need fibre / roughage at all times and there is more grass than browse in their field and they are not grazers so ignore the grass.
i dont want them to go without fibre, but i also want to try to balance it so they are forced to browse/graze a bit more than they do as will stand and eat hay given the choice
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I don't know anything about goats, but generally speaking would straw not be a better option to provide fibre? (hay is just dried grass after all). Or at least a mix of the two?
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Goats do better with hay at all times of the year, however at the moment mine have to do (and like it very much) with scythed long grass, dried for a couple of days in the polytunnel.
One thing you can do is give them lots more browsing and remove the hay while you have tied up the branches.
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The goats I've known in my life all did eat grass - if they weren't given an option. At times of the year there simply wasn't anything "better", so they lived with it. There usually was quite a lot of long, fibrous grass available, though. Goats are quite adaptable... (Can't remember where I read the story of goats who used to live in London, on waste from a bakery; in war time, they were evacuated to the country, but never really learned to eat that horrible green stuff under foot! :D )
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I don't know where you are located, but the quality of the grass with us has really gone over the past fortnight- it's been too dry. So, now our goats are back to eating lots of hay again. They really didn't look much for hay for six weeks from the middle of June.
I would give them less, or try putting some straw into the feeder. Straw will provide the roughage, but might not be as appealing as hay.
Beth
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using smaller holes in the feeders/nets would slow them down a bit.
are they fat?
also try giving them the whole bale with the string still attached tightly so they have to work to prise the hay out. this only works if its tightly packed.
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I only give my goats hay at night just now, or if its a wet miserable day and they won't go outside
Maybe they need more fun? tie it up in daft places or inside something, make them work for it :fc:
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hi yes they are all fat...the vet saw them all a few weeks ago ad said they very well covered.
i cant use hay bags or nets as the 2 wethers get their horns stuck in them as they insist on sticking their heads in to get the last tiny bits of hay out of the bag/net
they currently get hay in the sheep feeder with lid on as waste a lot if i feed on floor.
their paddock as lots of toys and climbing things so dont think they are bored.
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An alternative to haynets could be a box/trough/bucket with some kind of grid added on top, so they have to pull out the hay out of the holes. If you google 'horse slow feeder' and look at the 'images' tab you'll get a lot of photos of different ways on how to put some together something like that.
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how much acreage do they have? try reducing their amount to a bale a week, rather than 5 days if they are fat. and see how it goes. i presume you mean the small bales? if so sharing that with 8 goats isnt much really.
any photos of the paddock?
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I know they need long, fibrous stuff but surely nettles, docks, hedge are long and fibrous.
They're going to chew it up anyway.
A couple of years ago I visited a friend with A pet goat that didn't eat brambles and docks, her pony paddock was full of them.
It kept escaping to find the children and hassle for treats.
Spent half an hour showing the children which leaves were docks to pick and hand feed. The goat suddenly realised it was surrounded by treats and started finding it's own.
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sounds remarkably similar to our first livestock experience. we rehomed 3 pygmy goats from a local sanctuary specifically to start making inroads into the goat heaven we had just bought. weeds, brambles and goodies aplenty and they would not touch it but stood screaming at the gate until we gave them hay. like you we did this for the quiet life and whenever we tried to encourage them to browse it was as if they just didn't know what to do. as they were never meant to be productive and there sole job was to clear the weeds we stuck it for a year before getting rid, buying a brushcutter and some sheep.- bloody goats :roflanim: