Hay for goats

I wish I could get those prices. Right now we are paying $20 a bale for alfalfa. They are 100-115lbs each. That price will jump as soon as winter hits. Grass hays are more expensive. If we purchased a squeeze, we could get it for $13 a bale. That would be 88 bales. We do not have a way to store that much.

This might be a dumb question lol but what about feeding goats alfalfa cubes if I break them up. Do you guys feed your goats feed as well? I have 3 young goats from around 3 months to 7 months and an older goat that I think might be pregnant but not sure because my husband bought her from a sale barn . I want to make sure everyone is happy and healthy . I have lost a couple of babies that just suddenly died on me

I sure am glad my goats aren't picky about hay. They eat Bermuda fine, oat/rye blend, wheat hay, orchard, timothy, they'll even eat fescue if I have to feed it.
They will basically eat anything I put in front of them.
I pay $40 for a 800 lb round bale of Bermuda.

Some people do use cubes or pellets. It's been asked on here a lot. You could try it and see if they will eat it.

How old were the babies when they passed away? Do you have minerals out for the goats?

I do feed my pregnant goats grain in the last 8 weeks of pregnancy. Everyone does things differently.

lalabugs said:

Some people do use cubes or pellets. It's been asked on here a lot. You could try it and see if they will eat it.

How old were the babies when they passed away? Do you have minerals out for the goats?

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They ranged in ages of a month to 4 months. The most recent was around 4 months . He was fine then he wasn't. He was laying down so I brought him in and he died within a few hours. I had minerals out But it just got wasted because everyone sniffed it and walked away . So I stopped.

I live in FL and feed the south’s version of alfalfa- Perrenial Peanut hay. It is $11-14 a small bale, but we found someone who makes 800# round bales for $100 apiece. About 1/3 of it is grass hay mixed in and the goats don’t eat it. I can’t get them to eat anything but peanut.

lalabugs said:

I wish I could get those prices. Right now we are paying $20 a bale for alfalfa. They are 100-115lbs each. That price will jump as soon as winter hits. Grass hays are more expensive. If we purchased a squeeze, we could get it for $13 a bale. That would be 88 bales. We do not have a way to store that much.

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I have purchased the 100-110# bales of alfalfa here before and they run ~$21-26 depending on time of year and availability. Haven't see any advertised on CL recently. Did find some at a feed store and they were $28/110# bale. Pricing & availability are completely dependent on where you are, what the harvest was like (supply/demand), and if you can buy in bulk. I can by round bales here for very cheap, but the quality isn't what I want/need. I can buy cheaper stuff, but it doesn't get eaten and just goes to waste. So no sense in importing all kinds of additional weed seed into my pastures. I have enough already. I've finally found something they like, will eat, with very little waste. It's worth it to me to spend a little more to get it and use it. It actually works out to be less expensive over time.

I wish there were hay farms nearby that had a mix my goats would eat, that baled small (60#) or even the larger (110#) square bales, and would allow me to buy the bales right from the field. I'd be more than happy to drive my truck and trailer out into their field and load my own hay when I'd be charged $4-6 or even $10 a bale! Right now here, pure alfalfa trucked in from NM, CO, OK, NB, etc are running anywhere from $12-13/60# bale. I'm using an orchard grass/alfalfa blend and hope I can continue to find it. It's what they like and eat best and it's trucked in from I believe Indiana or some north mid west state.

Green Acres Farm said:

I can’t get them to eat anything but peanut.

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Boy can I identify with spoiled goats! Read my last above...

Our goats will eat hay baled right off our farm which is fescue, clover mix, crown vetch, crab grass, iron weed, orchard grass, lespedeza, and Timothy. This is what they graze on year round and so basically we stockpile what they have in the main growing season for winter. The only hay I find they will not eat is Coastal Bermuda. Our Farmer's CO-OP had some one time and I bought a few bales just to see if they'd eat it, and they wouldn't touch the stuff. Our hay off the farm is way higher in protein than that stuff anyway. If our goats had a choice of only the Bermuda, they would just eat more browse on the mountain.

G'day, do you up there have access to what we call chaff?Down here its usually alfalfa or oaten with the head in.The way I can best explain it is if you put baled hay through a mulcher you get "chaff" .

You also need a feeder that they cannot jump or climb into.To begin with you may need to add some stud mix and maybe a little dried Molasses(some of the stud mixes for horses have quite a lot in it) for energy and to lift the protein value.When we were milking years ago (and I mean a lot of years ago )it is really good for milk production.

Has anybody gone down the path?...T.O.R.