How much hay for winter?

[shannonk03]

I have two boer yearlings who will both (hopefully) be bred this November. I live in central Washington state and we typically get our first freeze in late October. They have several acres of irrigated pasture, but once it freezes off how much hay do you think I need to have stockpiled for the winter? We have been baling our pasture all summer and the pasture grass bales weigh about 80 pounds each. I will also be feeding a buck for 6 to 8 weeks.
Thanks!

 

[SheepGirl]

Here's my answer from another thread:

A goat in maintenance (NOT bred, NOT lactating, NOT growing, etc - basically not doing anything lol) requires 3% of their body weight in roughage. So you figure a 100 lb goat will need 3 lbs of hay. If you feed grain, they will need less hay. (With sheep, I figure 1 lb of grain = 2 lbs of hay).

With sheep (I assume goats would be similar, though sheep have a lower maintenance requirement than goats), when bred will need to eat at about maintenance level through month 3-4 of their pregnancy. Then in the last month or two, they get about 1/3 more hay (so a sheep getting 3 lbs of hay would be increased to 4 lbs) plus about 1 lb of grain. Lactating sheep get 1/2 to 1 lb of grain per lamb they are nursing. Lambs are creep fed grain and hay all they can eat. When lambs are weaned, they get hay plus 2-4% of their body weight in grain (depending on frame size/growth potential). Ewes after weaning are put back on a maintenance diet.

So the key is to figure out how much your goats weigh and multiply it by 0.03. After you get that number, multiply it by 1.1 to factor in 10% waste and that will be the total amount of hay per head to put out per day. I don't know when you are planning your kidding season, but if they are still on hay then you will need to factor in providing 1/3 more hay per day in the last 4-6 weeks of pregnancy, plus grain if you choose to feed it. If you don't feed grain, you will need to provide a lot more hay.

 

[20kidsonhill]

What sheep girl said is very accurate. You can pretty much figure 5lbs per goat per day of hay, assuming your hay feeder is not too wasteful. I would recommend either a very effiecient feeder, where they can't get out much at one time, or feeding the hay one or two times a day, and only putting out what they will eat and clean up between feedings and not pull out and waste all over the place.

 

[NYRIR]

sorry double post!

 

[NYRIR]

Pardon me for asking a newbie question....but I thought you are supposed to feed hay free choice? Is there a reason to limit hay?
Although if you are putting out a specific amount, the math equation would be very helpful!

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Yes, many if not most offer it free choice. If you trying to figure out how much you would need to buy though, this is a good estimate of what they will consume when pasture/browse isn't available.

 

[20kidsonhill]

Pardon me for asking a newbie question....but I thought you are supposed to feed hay free choice? Is there a reason to limit hay?
Although if you are putting out a specific amount, the math equation would be very helpful!

No math equation, Just put out what they will clean up in between feedings. If there are left overs, I cut back, if I go out and feed and they all act starving, I increase the amount that I fed the time before.
A normal small bale is 4o to 45 lbs. And if a goat eats 5 lbs of hay a day you would put out a bale per every 9 or 10 adult goats a day. Since I feed twice a day, I would put out half the bale. I just find if there is constand hay out goats have a tendancy to pick through it and just eat all their favorite parts out of it. Of course this may not be a bad thing if the hay isn't really good quality, they will pick through and eat the better quality parts of the hay. but if you have good quality hay, then it can be wasteful, or if you have limited about of hay due to a hay shortage and that is all you have to feed. Plus I don't like using hay as bedding in the barn. I prefer using straw. I feel hay in the barn makes the barn small worse in the winter time. We use deep bedding in our barn, another words we have dirt floors and only clean out ones every couple of years. Straw doesn't get as strong a smell when it is peed on or wet.

 

[NYRIR]

Right, I see what you mean...I thought I had good hay...but I guess not.....so maybe when i get some different hay, I'll limit wastage more as well!

 

[SheepGirl]

When I had my sheep on a drylot, I gave the ewes 2-3 lbs/feeding and the ram 1 lb/feeding and I went out to feed 3x/day. This way they cleaned up everything (and I was also too lazy to pull out all 9-12 lbs/day from the round bale all at once ). When I was out of town for the state FFA convention and when I went to VA Beach, I had all 9-12 lbs put in a trash bag that my brother would put out 1x/day. When I came back both times, there was hay still left in the feeder. So that's why I don't like putting out hay just 1x/day or leaving it out all day 'free choice' -- it gets wasted and then if you keep the non eaten hay in the feeder (in my case my feeder was outside/not under a roof) gets rained on and sun bleached and then the sheep turned their noses up at it. And you can forget about them eating it when there was 'fresh' hay brought out They would eat around it lol