# Goat Pasture



## HayTech1 (Sep 3, 2009)

What is the best grass to plant for goats! :


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## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

The four meat goats we graze have an area that is in three paddocks. Each paddock is made up of a sowed pasture that we put red clover for the legume, OG, rye and some fescue still pops up in areas from the old pasture. We layed out the paddocks so they each contain a some old overgrown pasture that used to be full of junk machinery. It has lots of multiflora rose, little saplings, and weeds. Believe it or not the goats love that stuff, especially the stuff they can browse. They seem to do well on the clover and grass. I have been told that if goats eat on sericiea lespedez they are less likely to have as great a worm problem. I have not tried this, but folks in the club have recommended it. I do rotate in hopes of keeping them from feeding on too short of forage hoping to keep the worm down that way and it seems to work fairly well. We check the eyes using the FAMACHA method instead of lots of dewormer. I took a class on it that was offered and got the official card to use for looking at the eye colors...it makes a difference.

I do not know where you live, but that is what I have here in Indiana. There is a friend that sells Byron seed I know and he has a package deal called "Browsemaster" that is made for goats...has chickory, grass, some alfalfa and clover and other things they can browse on. You can contact him on agloop.com (bowman-forage is his screenname)
I understand it is very good if you are seeding a pasture just for goats.

Hope it helps a bit...goats are fun, we use four of them just to help clear old pasture as we work clear more for additional paddocks for the cattle.


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

Trying not to act smart, but may not succeed. 
Poisen Ivy is a good browse for goats. They will ignore everything else to eat poisen ivy. 
I am more than half serious when I say that. 
Goats like just about anything a cow will walk past. They are programed to eat broad leaf roughage. They will leave a lush grass pasture to eat the leaves off a hackberry tree.

They do appear to also like sweet grasses for a feed.

I am not an expert but I do sell a good bit of alfalfa hay to goat owners. They will eat a grass hay but they will not be real happy about that.

The reason I mention poisen ivy, several neighbors used spanish goats to clean the weeds from under their pecan trees. The first thing they clean out is all the poisen ivy. 
I have never heard of them eating any of the nightshade weeds. 
I would say try every type of clover and pea you can find, plus look into turnips.

This from a hay farmer.


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## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

hay wilson in TX said:


> Trying not to act smart, but may not succeed.
> Poisen Ivy is a good browse for goats. They will ignore everything else to eat poisen ivy.
> I am more than half serious when I say that.
> Goats like just about anything a cow will walk past. They are programed to eat broad leaf roughage. They will leave a lush grass pasture to eat the leaves off a hackberry tree.


Hay Wilson is right...but then again he is a smarter man than me...the goats in fact eat that ivy up in the old pasture. The reason we included that old grown up area in the paddock was for them to eat this stuff up and help me clean it while it is hot out. To darn hot to be out there until Sep. Believe me when I say this was a grown up mess...heck I moved an old mower that I had to cut a 20 foot tree out of and found a wagon that had a twenty foot tree on each side. Anyway...the multiflora rose, poison ivy, little trees, scrubby stuff, they did a number on it when they browsed and are making it much easier for me to get a chain saw in there later this fall. Gotta like them for that.


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## David in Georgia (Aug 30, 2009)

Goats like "browse" they don't like one type of grass. Their preference is weeds before grass, I've had Lamancha dairy goats for 8 years. Their in a pasture that started out overgrown with tires, metal, old international square baler upside down in it. It was heavily infested with Kudzu and privet hedge with some Bermuda showing through. They have killed out the kudzu to the fence and killed out all the privet hedge and every low hanging branch from the neighboring trees. The pasture is now 99% Bermuda and they will strain their necks to get to the kudzu and any branches before they will mess with the Bermuda. We tried alfafa hay the first year we had goats and they turned their noses up at it. Hope this gives you some more insight.


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## Hobby Farmer KS (Jul 4, 2010)

I have about 7 Nubians (milk Goats). They have a priority on what they eat. 1st is any tree they can reach, willow, hedge, maple, cedar, it doesn't matter, then wind fall leaves, then any weed available. The last thing the will eat is my Brome. In fact their pin is half full of brome and I have to mow it. I let them out in the Brome field in fall and before I fertilize in the spring to eat the weeds. I don't have enough goats to clear it, but it helps. The other problem is my goats are not bothered by electric fences. They get hit and barrel through which is never good on the neighbors flower garden. I have people come ask me all they time if the goats could clear a weed field. I say yes, but they don't want to do ll the other things for the goats, shelter water and sumplement feed if needed.


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## HayTech1 (Sep 3, 2009)

Well I bought the Browse Master! I had to buy 50 lbs for 210 bucks because they would not sell a smaller quantity.
It has turned out to be an excellent stand of mixed weeds. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would pay that much on seed for something I spend excessive amounts of money on to KILL in my crops.
If anyone else has an itch to plant some weeds, I have plenty of seed left.








*BUT THE WIFE IS HAPPY*








Thanks to all for the tips!


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