BackYardHerds ForumRaising Cows, Goats, Sheep, Horses and More... in your BackYard |
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I'm getting ready to cut up a cantaloupe to have with our dinner adn wondered if the girls could eat the skin and seeds. That's all.
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hmm I don't know.. mine would not.. they do however eat banana peels.. (good source of potassium and vitamins) I would be careful and not overdo any new food source.. try a small bit and see.. they may be more interested in the inside of cantaloupe.. if you have chickens throw the leftovers out for them.. they eat that and watermelon down to the thin skin..then you can just throw it in compost!!
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I don't know about your goats, but ours always did and my current sheep and bottle calf fight over them....right alongside the dogs. The dogs always win! 
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No, if it were me, I wouldn't give them to the goats, I'd just pitch them in the compost or give to the chickies...
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I'd be more inclined to give it to the chickens, but if I did not have hens, I would wash the outside before cutting it to remove pesticides (most used today are hormones) and give it to them in moderation.
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Goats must have gotten more delicate since we used to raise them..... 
They used to eat any and all veggie and fruit scraps and enjoy every last morsel. Never had any problems.
Why are today's goats so incredibly difficult to raise, I wonder? Is it breeding? Have we bred the resiliency out of the animal? Until being on these forums, I had never even heard of goats having a fragile and delicate digestive system!
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Bee, maybe goats are stronger when living in these WV Hills. I fed them the cantaloupe after washing the skins with veggie wash. They LOVED it and had absolutely no ill effects because of it. I think they thought it was smooshy tree bark.
I know I am no expert, but I think *sometimes* we are a little too paranoid about their diets. How did goats thrive for thousands of years without Noble Goat pelleted feed and alfalfa hay?
I fed them the cantaloupe and I would do it again! There, I said it. lol
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It's not just goats whom have systems that can not tolerate large diet change. It is all ruminants.
I do not consider that goats are delicate, I just consider that they have their own unique diet. All animal species require a varying degree of difference in feed.
By general rule, simple stomached animals can handle more because they do not require microbes to break down the food.
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Mini-M Ranch wrote:
I know I am no expert, but I think *sometimes* we are a little too paranoid about their diets. How did goats thrive for thousands of years without Noble Goat pelleted feed and alfalfa hay?
I did some math on this once.. 
If you viewed man's keeping of goats from the very beginning until now as one 24-hour day, we've been using commercial 'bagged' feed for about the last 15 minutes.
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Goats in the wild will search out the feed that they need. They spend most of their energy finding this feed. That means that the goat is spending all of their time/energy walking around, which means that even if the goat is getting the ideal feed, it has metabolized all the extra off.
When a person puts a goat in captivity, you have limited the ability to seek for the ideal feed. The goat is forced into eating what you or the land provides.
Captive animals need to be supplemented to achieve a complete diet.
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