Imagine that you’re a goat, just grazing out on the farm for 5-8 hours a day. Trying to find any bit of food out there, in many cases goats are left with low quality and quantities of food. Chewing on the same bits of grass is getting old and you’ve got to be wishing for some grains or fodder to give you sustenance. With these poor feeding conditions many goats as a result have very low growth and production. Unfortunately goats aren’t treated like other farm animals and owners tend to be more carefree with them. In this entry I will be talking about all the feeding requirements goats need to meet, how all this affects their production, and finally, how they are treated than other farm animals.  

A goats diet tends to be demanding and goats can be hard to manage. According to an article written back in 2018 titled, Feeding Management of a Goat by Amit Singh, says they require Dry matter, concentrate, and water. It sounds simple when it’s put like that but the amounts of these vary depending on your goats condition. For dry matter there isn’t a specific amount for whatever condition your goat is in, there's just a general percentage which would be 5-6% of their weight. Moving onto the amount of concentrate, which varies depending on your goats condition, for example we’ll say just for keeping the animal happy and healthy the ratio of concentrate would be 250g for every 50 kg of body weight. If you’re using this goat for what it produces then the production ratio for concentrate would be 450g for every 2.5 liters of milk/doe. Finally is the amount of water a good estimate for goats weighing between 18-20 kg is 450-680g a day. Now if you give a cow the same amounts of nutrients as a goat the goat would actually produce more milk than a cow would. 

Speaking of the nutrients and how that affects different animals, goats require certain ingredients in their diet. Such as, wheat bran, crushed maize, barley, oats, molasses common salt, and numerous vitamins like A, B2, and D3. These all are in the ingredients that should be in most feeds and if they’re not then something is wrong. If there’s more protein levels it’ll be very beneficial for the goat. Depending on the age of the goat too that’ll affect how much feed they consume or need to consume. The older the goat the more feed and the younger the less feed. Very basic knowledge like most information about feeding animals, but we cannot neglect a goat's nutritional needs any longer. 

It’s interesting how we think that most farm animals are the same with the feeding regimens and care when they’re really not. Goats in many cases aren’t particularly treated as valuable as they are. Other animals might take food changes well and hardly notice a difference while goats can notice every little thing. Whether it be a change in how sweet or bitter it is they can and will notice. This is why it’s important to feed them with the same food to stay consistent and not confuse the animal. And that my entry on goats and everything you need to know about their food and the ingredients that should be in it.