Goat Feeder

I wanted to build a feeder for the goats so that I could put cut grass and grass hay into the field for them to eat whenever they wanted it. Originally, I was going to build a feeder shaped like a covered arbour (refer to last month’s design). However, I had some old scrap welded mesh that had 200 x 150mm openings (the sort that is used to reinforce concrete slabs) and I saw a simple feeder design in the “Raising Goats for Dummies” by Cheryl K. Smith book, so I figured that it would be an excellent short term solution.

Taking bolt cutters and angle grinder in hand, I rolled the mesh into a cylinder and closed it off with 4mm white wire. Then I trimmed any bits of metal that could cause the goats any injury and fixed it to the fence of the kid field with more wire. The idea here is that if I fixed the overlapped part of the feeder to the fence so that there would be little or no exposure of sharp bits for the goats to hurt themselves on. Also, the feeder is almost as tall as the fence, so it wouldn’t be a ladder for the goats to scale the fence.

With the feeder attached to the fence, the next task was to cut some grass and fill the feeder. The goats wanted to help me at every step of the operation; they were particularly keen on helping me to fix the feeder to the fence. But then they got distracted by the joys of their next favourite game “Jump in the wheelbarrow while someone is trying to push it along”. This is a fun game that all the family can play … but only the goats enjoy.

Over spring and early summer, the grass on our property has grown prodigiously. Mostly, the grass is only up to my waist. But some remote parts of the property, the grass is over my head! I use a brushcutter to cut the grass for the goats because the lawnmower and ride-on mower both leave petrol residue on the grass, and that isn’t so good for goats.

The feeder takes about three wheelbarrow loads of grass hay and this provides the goats with plenty of good fodder. The first time it was loaded, the goats ate the lot in just 5 days. I scaled back the load and they goats scaled back their enthusiasm for the grass hay. So we have reached a happy medium. Fat contented goats, grass getting trimmed, and lots of cud chewing going on well into the night.

Holly is a big fan of the feeder … in fact; Holly is a big fan of food. Millie values her interaction with us more than she does with food. Holly is often too distracted with eating to be bothering with coming when called or coming over for a pat.

I have left some of the garden in long grass so that I can give the goats a plentiful supply of grass hay.

I read in one of my goat books (I can’t remember which one) that said that grass hay looses 60% of its nutrients when left on the ground and a further 15% when exposed to rain. So I need to re-top the feeder after it has rained and make sure that there is always a good layer of old hay on the bottom. Not ideal, but it seems to be very satisfactory for the goats.

Goats need to have on-demand access to food like grass hay. Grass hay is full of fibre and, in plentiful supply, provides a good basis for their diet. The girls also get goat pellets laced with chopped raw carrots for breakfast and dinner (about 2 cups for each goat of pellets and one carrot – per feed).

We have sown some pasture mix in the kidding field (oat, alfalfa, and rye grass) so that they have some good conditioning forage in their paddock.