Fodder beets for dairy goats?

[Ariel72]

Does anyone have experience feeding fodder beets to their dairy goats? I found some information stating that if its supplemented with dry matter it can fulfill all the nutritional requirements of a dairy animal. I am doubtful but want to learn more about feeding and growing fodder beets for my future little herd.

 

[freemotion]

I grew red mangels and fed the tops as I harvested them(a few a day to make use of all the tops), and am now feeding the beets. They are very tough and have to be chopped for the goats to handle them, but they love them.

I am not one to feed only two or three things to fill ALL the nutritional requirements of any of my critters, or my family....I think that there is nutritional safety with lots and lots of variety. Mangels adds more "fresh" vegetable material in a long, snowy New England winter with NO fresh material available other than a few xmas trees dragged in from the farm next door and a few peelings from our own meal prep. I will plant them again.

This was my third attempt at planting them....we had two soggy summers with no root crops (one year I had giant rutabagas which the goats got, inexplicably no other root made it) and last summer, drought, but I watered once a week and got some medium-sized mangels.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

my dad bought mangels (golden eckendorf?) to plant last summer but he never did. are these good for goats? i read that when fed to milk cows they really up milk production.

 

[Ariel72]

I thought about mangles, but heard they were hard to grow. I don't know if that is true or not but they are supposed to up milk production. I'd like to find out more about them.

Freemotion, I agree about feeding a variety of things. My plans are to feed freechoice grass hay, twice a day alfalfa, pumkins, beets or mangles, rotated pasture, comfrey...

I'm also looking into feeding sunflowers (stalks and seeds) and green corn (stalks fed before they set seed). I'll feed store bought feed to fill in the gaps, but eventually I'd like to learn to do without it. All ideas in this are more than welcomed.

 

[freemotion]

The only store bought food I use are whole grains that I sprout and a mineral blend. Oh, and hay, of course. I can cut a bit here off my pasture in a good year.

Mangels are wonderful, as are any fresh veggies for upping milk production. Especially the root crops, like mangels, beets, rutabagas, carrots. There is an online article on how to grow them in a sheep journal.....I'll go find it for ya.

Here it is: http://www.sheepmagazine.com/issues/25/25-3/Nathan_Griffith.html

 

[Ariel72]

Thank you! Great article...just what I am looking for.

 

[Hillbilly]

Thanks - just what I have been thinking of as well