feeding goats

Good morning:
can goats eat cracked corn ,whole oats,and mineral,
many thanks
jr frye

Yes along with all the rotten hay you can feed them. They prefer it over good Alfalfa bales.

Goats can eat all of that and more -- when we were feedlotting goats years ago we fed whole shelled corn and chopped alfalfa hay, they gained and fattened like lambs.

I thought goats could and would eat about anything

Goats will sample almost anything, but prefer to browse on shrub leaves or planrs, bushes small trees. They will graze on various grasses,do well with hay. Thrive on sparse natural growth in semi-arid areas. They will eat grains like cracked corn& oats if forced too, however that's not their normal diet and can lead to health issues and heavy fat build up.

We feed our goats the same thing we feed the horses. Oats and corn and pellets and some other stuff. We have a custom mix of feed. It is a sweet feed but you can get by with corn and oats and hay of course. If you have areas that you want the black berries gone you let the goat have them and they make short work of them

they can eat corn - but go easy with it. it has very little nutritional value and can cause health problems if they eat too much of it, especially in males because of the excess calcium.

I mix it in with other grains - and I use more of it during the colder months. probably 1/4 to 3/8 at the most of whatever mix i'm giving them.

supposedly corn heats them up - but I have no way of knowing if that's true. But if nothing else it'll fatten them up - and I figure that's not a bad thing for a cold winter.

during the warmest months I cut it out altogether - but by then they're pretty much eating brush all day, so I don't give them much grain of any type.

Just curious as to where in the world you ever got the idea that corn has very little nutritional value for livestock? Corn is the benchmark concentrate feed for all classes of livestock that has yet to be excelled. There are cheaper feeds but for producing meat, milk and egss corn is worth more per pound than any of them.

my neighbor Le Roy used to raise goats.
he always told me new oats sick goats. don't feed 2012 oats to goats in 2013.
if this is true i don't know but Le Roy told me he toutgh it to be true.

yes you can feed corn, whole or cracked,..but be very carefull with the amount, as corn will founder your goats....it's like candy to them and they don't know when to quit eating,...

Look on line about the minerals. Goats maybe different than sheep but regular mineral mixes will kill sheep.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said it has "little nutritional value" for a goat - more accurately I'd say it has "limited" nutritional value.

In other words - you feed a goat nothing but corn, and it probably won't live very long - it certainly won't be very healthy.

Yes - corn has some good qualities, like protein, but it's not everything a goat needs.

Corn is good quick energy for goats - kids can use it up, and pregnant/lactating does can burn it off too - but goats in general will just get fat from it.

And if you doubt me, just look at the corn content in any commercial goat feed. Believe me, if corn was the ultimate goat feed, grain producers would use a LOT more of it in their feed mixes. There's a reason the professional nutritionists don't.

Goats need a blend - and that's what I'm recommending. Use corn in moderation, blended with other grains. And don't skimp on hay. Don't try to replace hay with grains.

And somebody here mentioned feeding them spoiled hay - I haven't seen it myself because I do my own haying, and would never keep a wet bale - but from what I understand, goats are very susceptible to mold, and can easily develop listeria.

I for one would never take the chance, but again, have not seen it with my own eyes, so I don't know HOW big a problem it is. But I've also never had a goat contract listeria.

It's also why you're not supposed to feed goats any kind of silage.

they'll taste everything, that's for sure. But they won't actually EAT everything.

we use a goat / sheep feed for our sheep, which is a mix of grains including corn. Yes, do not over feed grain. Goats like grass hay with weeds, not rotten hay. And stay away from dusty hay if possible. We have had a few goats over the years and keep them with the sheep 100%.

(quoted from post at 10:24:53 04/25/13) Look on line about the minerals. Goats maybe different than sheep but regular mineral mixes will kill sheep.

Click to expand...

That's the copper issue. Most sheep feed is copper free, although recently they've discovered sheep do need some copper. How much is the issue.

When you think of goats, think of deer. Their preferred diet is about the same. They don't need much grain. And spoiled hay is not good for them either. They will eat brushy hay and weedy hay though. They won't eat stemmy hay to speak of. They nose through it and pick out the leaves and leave the rest for bedding, or for the cows to eat.

Wanna know how to test a fence to see if it will hold goats?

Take a bucket of water and throw it at the fence, if any gets through it won't hold goats...