Pumkin Plants

[stano40]

Couldn't find this anywhere or on the fias site. Can goats eat the pumpkin plant & vines itself?

bob

 

[cmjust0]

Ours avoid squash/pumpkin/gourd vines, but then a buddy of mine told me yesterday that his goats finally ate all the pumpkin vines growing in one of his pens....and then proceeded to eat holes in the pumpkins on their own and eat those, too.

My thinking is that they ate the vines as a last resort, though..

They LOVE pumpkins, though...generally you'll have to split them open, at which point they go nuts eating them as fast as they possibly can.

 

[Beekissed]

My hair sheep are the same way....they will eat the vines when there is not much else to forage upon.

The pumpkins are like crack cocaine to my girls...especially if they have been frozen first and then thawed out....I think this converts the starches to sugars and makes for a much sweeter snack.

I grow pumpkins intentionally each year for supplemental feed and the de-worming properties of the seeds.

 

[stano40]

I found out about the pumpkins last year when we only had our Alpine now with 10 goats this is going to be a battle zone if I don't get more than two pumpkins.

Unfortunately my pumpkin plants didn't germinate and all that's out there are some flowers, leaves and vines. The leaves are hairy like comfrey.

Some of my goats like the comfrey leaves though.

bob

 

[Ariel301]

Mine like the vines and leaves, but that is probably because they don't get to browse very often. We can't turn them out on our land because everything grows so slowly here in the desert, so I throw weeds/pulled up plants from the garden in the pens. They go crazy over any of it, including pumpkin.