Our (now 4 in number, soon to be 3) seven-and-a-half month old nigerians are spoiled. OK. There. I said it. Now that that is out of the way, we have noticed that they DO waste hay.
If the hay hits the ground, it is immediately suspect, "probably spoiled so don't even try it" suspect. We see that they do enjoy browsing, i.e., tearing leaves etc. off bushes and trees and prefer anything like that over eating grass..., or hay. We have also noticed that they prefer hay in the bale over the exact same hay in the feeder and we think it is because they like the ripping and tearing action of getting the hay from the bale..., sort of like ripping and tearing leaves and things off bushes and trees. We have noticed that a branch ON the tree has leaves that are preferable to the leaves on the same branch, when it is then freshly cut and on the ground. Also, we have noticed that a leaf that doesn't require some pulling to get it is often not eaten and just casually dropped. We are starting to wonder if a hay feeder that somehow compacts the hay and makes it difficult to get might somehow make the hay more interesting and lead to less wastage.
Has anyone out there had any experience with this?
I have not really thought through how to make some sort of hay presser, but maybe somehow a weighted panel on top of the hay in the feeder springs to mind, but I would imagine that there is something better out there.
I just hate to see the perfectly good hay go to waste. (I admit I don't eat the stuff, so maybe there are subtleties which elude me to the taste and quality of what is eaten over what is rejected, and to try and change that would be beating my head against a wall.) We have a friend with a commercial herd and let me say that there is not a scrap of extra hay on the ground! There is always some goat that thinks that even that last piece of hay is pretty tasty, and that makes me think that our system could be improved (and not by becoming a commercial goat dairy!)
Any ideas or suggestions?
-Michael
Replies
Deborah,
It might be too costly to have them sent to Australia, but I might try to cut holes in a similar plastic hopper. I will post the outcome of the experiment.
-Michael
Back in January I bought these hay feeders, which are pictured upside here for some reason:
https://sydell.com/product/2-pack-poly-hay-baskets/
I bought them because we've had trouble with kids hanging themselves in these feeders:
https://sydell.com/product/2-pack-hay-baskets/
We've "only" lost two kids that way, but it was two too many, and I've not lost any recently because I place the hay feeders close enough to the ground that if a kid gets its head caught in the "V" section, its feet are still on the ground. And I HAVE walked in and found way too many standing there, waiting for me to rescue them. So, I was worried that at some point, a kid would panic and break its neck, so I decided to get the plastic hay baskets because they look safe from the perspective of kids hanging themselves.
At first the goats didn't seem to know what to do with them, but now that they're used to them, they gobble up the hay just fine. And I hadn't thought about it until your post, but there doesn't seem to be quite as much hay wasted -- at least in the pens with multiple goats. In the kidding pens with just one goat, however, I'm not sure there is much difference in amount of hay wasted.
Ultimately, I think competition has a lot to do with how much hay is wasted.
When I worked in a Zoo, we used to create environment enrichment tools to imitate the ways specific animals would eat in the wild. We made PVC "logs" for the monkeys, and put some of their food in them... they had small holes that the monkeys had to find/create/use tools to get into, or had to pick at with their fingers... put hay up in high feeders at varying levels for the Giraffe to imitate tree branches, etc. There are a lot of cool "no waste" feeder ideas for goats... some of them as simple as a trash can with holes cut out at various levels... some bigger, some smaller... which remind me of the kinds of things we did at the Zoo. I use a cattle pannel scrap piece to hold my hay, and the goats seem to like it. They prefer those feeders to the areas where I just set the flakes down most of the time. I think the idea of a weight on the hay to make the eating activity more close to the pulling of leaves, etc. is a good one. Even just a trash can with holes, and then a flat, round cement walking path block on top would probably accomplish that. And for cheap.
THAT SAID:
Goats just waste hay. I don't worry too much about it, because my goats eat in their barn area, and their wasted hay goes on the ground, and then they sleep on it. When I clean out the barn, I put the mucked, partially composted hay into a huge pile where my chickens have access, and then the chickens go through it for the seeds and bugs that are there. They also turn it and break it down into smaller pieces. Once they've had their fun, I take the pile and mulch my garden with it. The chickens have taken care of most of the seeds by then, and made is easy to manage, plus, there's goat (and a very small amount of chicken) poo in it, so the mulch is also a compost. So far, this system has worked out REALLY well, and I love it. I don't feel like my hay is getting wasted that way... it's just going through a cycle... and each step serves a purpose that is helpful and healthy for everyone.
This is probably the single biggest complaint of goat owners. I used to get so frustrated until I attended an organic gardening seminar and learned that some gardeners buy alfalfa to add to their compost! So, now I just say that the goats are working to improve my compost pile by mixing alfalfa into their bedding.
I have noticed that goats eat a lot more when there is more competition. A goat will completely ignore food when by itself, but if there are other goats around, they gobble it up! Totally reminds me of when my first child was a year old. We had bought her this rocking horse, which she completely ignored -- never touched it -- until a friend came over with her toddler, and the second he tried to get on it, she screamed, "Mine!" and tried to push him off!
Are our goats related? Or are my goats visiting your place on the sly? LOL Mine have the same eating patterns. I find it so fascinating how they choose what and what not to eat when they are browsing. They even seem to test out the bark of the trees to see which spot is the tastiest. And I'm always surprised at how many things they will turn their noses up at that I thought they'd just love. For instance, they love oak leaves but won't touch sweetgum leaves. Naturally I have more sweetgum than oak in my woods. They just love to be contrary!
I wonder if the extra competition for food at the commercial dairy is the reason those goats don't waste hay?
I am convinced that goats just waste hay. My girls pull out big mouthfuls and part of it always hit the ground. I clean it up and put it in the chicken coop. All the stems they leave from the alfalfa goes to the sheep and the rest end up in the humus pile for the garden - so really nothing is wasted. The chickens go thru the pile I take to their pen and eat a lot of it. It is actually most of the bedding in the coop.
We have tried lots of different style feeder but always have the same results. We have always found that anything on the ground is not what they eat but they are spoiled and well fed so they want the best.