Our Recommended Feeding Protocol for Nigerian Dwarf Goats
First and foremost, we must remember every herd’s needs are different. It will depend on your location, the types of browse the goats have access to, and the sex, breed, and age of your goats. I will break this article down into the following 3 sections to cover the different feeding regimen for kids, does, and bucks/wethers.
In all cases, balance and consistency is key. Goats are ruminants, which means they have four stomachs. A goat’s ability to process food requires plenty of roughage and fibre to work properly. The four stomachs break down, or ruminate, the food as it passes from chamber to chamber, almost fermenting it. Although the goat's digestive system is similar to that of other ruminants, such as cattle and sheep, who are grazers, and eat grass, goats are most related to deer, who are browsers. As browsers, goats like to eat brush, branches, leaves, and trees more than grass, and the roughage from this browse is important to helping their stomachs ruminate the food. It is important not to make big changes in the way you feed a goat all at once, or feed large quantities of a new food that the goat has never had before, if you do this, this is when you can run into problems. You can throw off the bacteria in the goat's rumen, which can cause the goat to bloat, which can lead the rumen to shut down. If you are ever needing to change a goat's diet, do so very slowly, to give the bacteria in the rumen time to adjust.
FEEDING KIDS:
Almost all the kids we raise on our farm are raised and nursed by their own mothers. So, bottle feeding is not something I am going to go into here, but will a post on it another time. The kids need to get colostrum from their own mom within 20 minutes of being born, and then be solely on mothers milk until they start nibbling hay from about a week of age on. From the age of 2 weeks until about two months, or when they go to their new home, we give them a bit of grain each day (formulated goat text). This will depend on their size, but it grows gradually with them as they grow from a couple tablespoons, to about a half cup each. They also need hay, as well as pasture/browse, minerals, and fresh water. This feeding regimen helps with the transition from weaning, or if they go to their new home it is very easy for the new owner to keep feeding them the same amount of grain, minerals, and hay. It is possible not to feed grain, but I personally like it because the goat is going to feel awfully hungry if it’s cut off from mother’s milk cold turkey at 8 weeks and only fed hay. Then, they can be weaned off grain about the time they reach a year old if you dont want to feed them grain as an adult. Some people are really scared of grain, but in my opinion, if you buy a textured goat feed ("goat text"), it is a scientifically formulated feed that meets all of the goats needs. It is when you start supplementing other things, making your own, or feeding too much, or your hay was too high or low in something, that you can run the risk of imbalance, and then, problems.
DOES:
Breeding and milking does are probably the most complex to feed, just because they have fluctuating needs throughout the year. A dry doe, (pet doe that you don’t breed) would be fed the same as a wether (see bucks/wethers below).
So I will explain “generally” how we feed our does throughout the year very briefly. This will vary between does, herds, locations, age, etc.
Our does go out and browse year round in the pasture and forest. So we don’t feed in the a.m. unless it’s a particularly rainy or snowy day. They get fed a local grass mix hay every evening. In the summer, while there is lots of nutrients in the pasture grass, they get less and in the winter they get more. About 8 weeks before a doe kids, we start giving her grain. We start with a very small amount like 2 tbs and then gradually over the weeks up to about a cup a day. Once she kids, we see how many kids she has, and adjust more feed depending. The doe will need lots of calories to make the milk to feed these kids. We also might supplement alfalfa (Hay or pellets) at this time, especially if the doe seems to need more protein (is thin, had a big litter, or is a particularly heavy milk producer). The does get a couple cups of grain on the stand. We really can’t feed our does enough it seems when they are milking. A milking doe can eat 5-7% of her body weight daily. It is harder for her to produce milk than to make babies! After her kids leave, or if we are done milking her, whichever one occurs first, we will dry her off and stop feeding her grain at the same time. This is a gradual process which takes at least two weeks. The dry does will be on pasture, browse, minerals, salt and herbs only. A good supplement or “treat” for does is a handful of BOSS (black oil sunflower seeds). It is high in selenium and the oil is good for the skin and coat. BOSS is high in Phosphorus so use sparingly with bucks and wethers.
BUCKS & WETHERS
Bucks are a very important part of your herd, some would say the most important! So taking good care of your bucks is imperative. Since we have to keep our bucks separate from our does at all time, ours have a different paddock space and not as much access to pasture and browse as our does. So this is what WE do to help them maintain a healthy rumen and body condition.
First of all, calcium to phosphorus ratio of 2 to 1 in feed and minerals is essential. Bucks and wethers can be prone to urinary stones, which can be a dangerous and life threatening condition. Although the condition is called Urinary Calculi, the real culprit is phosphorus -- too much phosphorus in relation to the amount of calcium in the diet. Feeding too much grain and/or to much alfalfa, or hay with an improper calcium-to-phosphorus ratio is almost always the cause of Urinary Calculi. Overfeeding and improper feeding of grain and/or other supplements/treats, can cause solid particles to develop in the urine. These solid particles block the flow of urine out of the goat's body, causing pain, discomfort, and death if not resolved. Some people say to supplement bucks with ammonium chloride, I don’t, but I have never dealt with urinary stones. If I had, or if my bucks seemed prone to it, I may start. It’s recommended as 1 tsp per day to 150 lbs, so not much at all. One other culprit can even be your well water, so take everything into consideration if you ever come across this problem.
We actually lost a buck very dear to us one year in rut season, so for our bucks we have now switched them to formulated goat text ration year round. This is not something everyone does or should do, it is what we have to do to maintain good condition. It’s working very well for us and we’ve had no issues.
Our bucks get about a cup of grain each a day in the evening, free choice grass mix hay, loose dairy goat minerals mixed 50-50 with livestock salt, a salt block, a formulated herb blend, and unlimited fresh water.
For WETHERS- this is very important- (wethers are neutered bucks), STOP all grain by a year of age and make sure to provide plenty of grass mix hay, browse, minerals, salt and fresh water. They don’t have the energy output that a buck does so they could gain weight easily if overfed.
So, this is our feeding system here at Yellow Point. You can build your herd's feed regimen off of our ideas, but you may need to tweak it or ultimately choose to do something different based on your herd's needs.
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