How We Feed:

Providing excellent quality nutrition is likely the most important part of successfully raising any animal, and goats are no exception. Feed costs will also be the largest expense to raising goats unless you are blessed with enough land to provide year-round high quality forage. Even in this case, if you want your goat to be able to provide a higher quantity of milk for you, then some grain will be required to keep her in good condition.

Here is how we feed our goats at Sandhill Oaks:

Does:

Hay: In general, does will have free-choice access to compressed alfalfa blocks. This hay is supplemented with some additional peanut hay or square bale alfalfa when we can get 3rd or 4th cutting. We do this so that the goats can free feed on alfalfa, but also get even higher quality hay in measured amounts. We try to get hay with a forage analysis whenever we can.

Grain: We currently feed ADM 16% dairy goat feed based on the need of the goat. Goats in milk will get higher amounts of grain on the milk stand, and dry or fat does will get a smaller amount. We try to keep grain to a minimum, but do not try to go without. Milk goats are not wild goats, and our goats are not bred to maintain the body condition we like with forage alone.

Bucks:

Our bucks get free choice coastal hay or an alfalfa mix hay. They are generally supplemented with peanut hay or a higher quality square bale alfalfa hay when available based on body condition.

Grain: Our bucks are fed some grain especially during rut to help them keep body condition. We are currently feeding Kent Blue Seal 16% Grow and Finish.

Kids:

Our goal is to keep kids on milk for as long as we can. Our current practice, which is evolving, is to dual raise our kids to be bottle fed and dam-raised. There are many advantages to this (and some definite disadvantages). Our kids are free with the herd during the day, then separated at night with free choice access to a lambar. The "bottle" raising makes for very friendly kids, and we are able to provide coccidia prevention in the milk using calf-pro. We are able to easily separate kids from their dams during goat shows with less stress. These kids then also get the advantage of living in a herd. Kids living in a herd learn to eat solid food faster than bottle kids do, so they develop a functional rumen quicker.

The big disadvantage to dam raising is in the risk of transmission of disease from dam to kid. All of these diseases can be silent, meaning they are present with no outward signs (at least for some time). Some diseases of concern for this include CAE, Johne's, Staphlococcus Aureus, mycoplasma, and others. See our section on health testing for how we keep this risk as low as we can.

Otherwise, kids have access to peanut hay or high quality alfalfa free choice, and are fed a medicated feed free choice when penned at night.

Minerals and Supplements:

Mineral: Our goats are provided with free choice loose mineral, usually Sweetlix Meat Maker. The amount of mineral that gets used is measured to ensure proper consumption. We discovered that our alfalfa hay is generally low in vitamins, so additional Vitamins A, D, and E are added to our loose mineral mix to compensate.

Copper: Our goats are given Copper Oxide wire boluses twice a year in March and September. This is to aid in parasite control on our farm. Copper levels are measured in our goats via liver samples sent out to the lab any chance that we get.

Selenium: We live in an area with selenium deficient soil. We have measured and know that that our goats would be selenium deficient without supplementation. Currently, we give BoSe injections every 3-4 months, but we will be working on supplementing our mineral mix to provide a proper amount so that injectable supplementation is not required. Our kids all receive selenium within 24 hours of birth.