In the summer, a goat on grazing independently regulates the goat breeder’s feeding mistakes, but in the winter, in a stall, the animal needs proper care and a suitable diet. Even experienced farmers do not always know what is recommended to feed a goat in winter, although there is nothing complicated about it. In order for the animal to receive the necessary vitamins, it is important to know what foods are suitable for goats and how to combine them with each other.
Goat diet in winter
Goats should have a combined diet during the winter.To ensure that the animal receives the required amount of nutrients and vitamins from food, experienced farmers feed their livestock according to the principle: in the morning they give dry coarse feed, and in the afternoon - concentrates, organic matter and a lot of hay.
It is important to monitor the purity and quality of the products that the animal will consume. Root vegetables such as carrots and beets must be free of contaminants. Hay must be dried properly to retain its mineral components.
Roughage
In addition to hay and straw, which are best given to goats after lunch, the animal needs to eat roughage - branches, sticks, pine needles. If it is not possible to take goats into the forest so that they can feast on the branches of trees and shrubs, you can prepare twig brooms at home. For brooms, you can cut branches from any tree and dry them under a canopy.
The most suitable trees for making brooms:
- Linden;
- birch;
- oak;
- maple;
- aspen;
- Rowan.
In autumn, the workpieces should be stored in a dry place, for example, in the attic. For a goat, 500 g of branch feed per day is enough.
Juicy feed
Every day you need to feed the goat silage, fresh vegetables and roots. The daily norm of succulent food per adult is 2-3 kilograms. The role of such nutrition is important for maintaining health and increased milk production in females. Nutrient silage is made from:
- tops;
- mixtures of legumes and cereals;
- waxy corn kernels;
- soy;
- sweet clover;
- alfalfa.
Juicy food includes boiled potatoes, which can be mixed with crushed cereals. It is advisable to add a teaspoon of salt and ground chalk to the mixture of boiled potatoes and grains.
Concentrates
It is important to introduce concentrated feed into goat dietso that the animal receives the required amount of vitamins and minerals throughout the winter. Concentrates contain a lot of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. These useful compounds can be used to soak hay and straw. Concentrated formulations come in several types:
- carbohydrates, consisting of cereals;
- proteins made from beans and soybeans;
- fatty, high in protein, such as rapeseed oil;
- powdered milk;
- food organic waste;
- fish bone meal;
- compound feed
Features of feeding an animal at home
Goats should be fed tops daily. 3-4 kilograms of tops per day is enough for one head. This food usually includes cabbage leaves, sugar beets, and carrots. Chalk is added to the tops in order to neutralize the acidity of vegetables. Every day, one adult eats 500-600 grams of hay or straw.
During pregnancy
In order for future offspring to be born healthy, a pregnant goat needs to be given a little less root vegetables than usual. Excess vegetables and roots can affect the development of kids in the womb, and they will be edematous. In this case, childbirth will be difficult, and the offspring will be born weak.
| Daily diet of a pregnant goat in winter | Feeding schedule |
| In the morning: 200 g of grain and 600 g of tops with root vegetables | From 7 to 8 am |
| During the day, feed 2 kg of hay or straw. | From 12 to 13 pm |
| For an afternoon snack, give grains, cereals and cakes in a total amount of 400 g | From 16 to 17 in the evening |
| In the evening, spread the hay in the feeders before the animals go to bed | After 18-19 pm |
The hay in a pregnant female's feeder should be freely available to her. When she completely eats it, you should add another portion. During pregnancy, goats happily eat brooms. You can give some pine needles along with the branches.
Milk goat
In order for the female to have a long lactation period, it is important to introduce more protein products into her diet. The winter diet must contain concentrates with a high content of legumes and soybeans. In order for a goat to produce more milk, it needs to eat succulent food regularly. Milking females should be given more silage and root crops than dry food.
On average, a female needs 2 kilograms of root vegetables per day. Less grains should be given, up to 1 kilogram daily.
Feeding kids
Newborns usually feed on mother's milk and colostrum. If for some reason it is impossible to provide the kid with natural nutrition, then it is better to switch it to a mixture of pasteurized goat milk. For goats at an early age, roughage is contraindicated due to the fact that their digestive system will not be able to digest hay, branches or grains. When newborns turn 11 days old, you can gradually switch them to porridge.
21 days after birth, the kid is able to eat adult food. You can give him grated apples and succulent food. The dose of milk in the goat's diet should be gradually reduced. Instead of milk, the animal is given supplements, chalk, salt and bone meal. At two months of age, the diet of a kid may be no different from that of an adult. The only difference is the size of the portions.
What should you not feed your goat?
It is important to monitor the animal’s diet and not give it monotonous food, for example, only silage and hay or grain and beans. The transition to winter nutrition should be smooth.Every morning you can give hay, and only then allow you to graze. This is necessary so that the goat gets used to fresh grass without stress. You can't force her to eat hay if she doesn't like it. The workpiece must be checked for rot or parasites.
When feeding, it is important to maintain balance so as not to overfeed animals with the same foods. Despite the fact that concentrates are useful, you should not constantly use them as feed, as this can cause urolithiasis in the goat. Goats are unpretentious animals, and a variety of foods suit them. The main task of a goat breeder is to monitor the quality of products and give them to livestock in the right proportions.
