While raising goats can seem like a lot of fun whether you are raising them for milk, food, or just pleasure, it is very important to do your research on how to raise goats before you actually buy a goat.
So...What do goats eat?
Well depending on the kind of goat you buy they might just eat anything that is available. They are naturally curious creatures and will have to try just about everything much like a puppy.
Some goats will eat anything and everything that is around them so you need to make sure that what you are feeding them is giving them the proper nutrition so that they stay strong and healthy.
Goats eat a large variety of things including bushes, flowers, bark off of trees, hay, grains and even some grass (although they do not prefer to eat grass and will not act as a lawnmower for you). Goats also need a lot of copper in their diet. If they get insufficient copper it will lead to a lot of health issues later on down the road.
You can feed your goats scrapes from your kitchen (fruit and vegetable scrapes) but they do not eat meat so make sure you keep the scrapes vegetarian and do not feed them a lot at a time.
It is always a good idea to give them a large variety of grains, hay, flowers, and bushes in their diet so that they get the wide variety of nutrients that they need.
One thing to keep in mind though is that because they tend to eat everything do not let them around flowers and bushes that you like and want to keep or around bushes that are poisonous.
Just like cat food and dog food you can buy goat food. One thing to watch out for though is the goat food that is labeled for both goats and sheep.
Sheep can not have nearly as much copper (none at all actually) as goats need because the copper is poisonous to sheep. If you are feeding your goat food that works for both sheep and goats you are going to run into major problems because your goat is not getting the proper nutrition.
A note about feeding hay to your goats. They will naturally pick through the hay to find the best tasting parts so you will have a lot of wasted hay. There is really not much you can do about this so just know it in advance and be grateful that hay does not cost a lot of money.
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