Alternative winter goat feed

[Northern_bushrat]

We're up in northern Canada, out in the bush, and trying to figure out if keeping goats for milk and cheese is a viable option. We have to haul everything in by boat or skidoo, and have snow on the ground from late October till early May, so the idea of having to haul in hay to feed the goats over the winter is a bit daunting and expensive. We do have mostly poplars, cottonwood, willows and alders around the place. Does anyone know if goats could subsist (and still give milk!) on a diet of twigs and grain, with just very little hay? We're looking at that kind of food for 7-8 months of the year.

[bookwormom]

you do not have any cleared land on your place so you could make hay? Having milk animals was essential for survival in places as far north as Iceland. You will just get one cutting, but if you have enough land cleared to get enough hay you should be fine. In summer goats sure will eat the leaves and sprouts of trees, they like poplar especially. Some folks have saved dry leaves for fodder, too, but I have not tried that.
A girl from my neck of the woods has moved to Northern British Columbia, they are keeping cows and are haying. I have not been there.

[granolaeeter]

Shredded beet pulp and alfalfa pellets might be an option if you have access to them.
Shredded beet pulp (if you purchase it from a feed store) is fairly light weight and provides a LOT of roughage and a bit of iron. I used to feed it to horses that needed more roughage in thier diets but couldn't get it from hay from various reasons. Alfalfa pellets still provide some of the benefits of hay and a fair amount of nutrition.

I would also wonder if you couldn't grow your own beets and process them for the goats - I am not sure about what effects feeding massive amounts would have but it would add some variety.

[Northern_bushrat]

The beet pulp idea sounds interesting - will have to do some research on that!
We don't have a large plot of land here and it's very rocky so growing much hay isn't really an option, I think. We could probably grow some but I don't think enough to feed goats for that many months. I tried gathering dry leaves as litter for our ducks this year but found it's very ineffective (crumbles apart as soon as a duck steps on it) and time-consuming to gather it, so probably not that great for feeding goats either.
I think goats could probably get by through the winter with eating the bark of branches, plus some grain, pellets and hay but wonder if that's good enough for them to still produce milk.

[annabella1]

I don't have experience in this area, but a lot of your problem may be based on the type of goat. You should probably look into an alpine variety. If they survive cold mountain winters they probably would be suited for your situation.

[gardenfay]

Well I would try to research it some more; but goats are essentially browsers, aren't they?
so are there any wild browsers that survive and thrive in your area, like deer?
If so, then I would try it.
The beet pulp answer made me think of something even though you said your ground is rocky. I've grown mangel beets before and they are used for livestock feed. That might be something you could grow and not have to haul in. The mangel beets grew great in northern Minnesota; about 100 miles s of the Canadian border; i know you are farther north than that. but it might be worth a shot.
the lady who gave me seed in Mn. had a funny look on her face when she gave it to me. Didn't know why till later; after it came up and grew so well; she confessed that the seed was over 20 years old!

[Northern_bushrat]

We have moose, mountain goats and some deer up here. I kind of think too that goats would make it through the winter, they live in harsh climates like Tibet and Nepal too after all and I don't know if poor peole there would feed them much hay. But I definitely want to find out what the alternative options are for feeding them before getting goats. We keep joking that we should just tame a mountain goat, and maybe also a moose for riding on ;)

[gardenfay]

yea, thats a thought ;D
But i will go look around a minute, just had an idea

[elh]

Here is a very good place to look for goat questions. No better people any where. http://www.luresext.edu/goats/research/goat_research.htm

[gardenfay]

What elh found you is probably better than the ones i found; but did find a couple interesting facts; one at a place called goat dairy library. It said that if a goat is sick, while it is recuperating feed it cut branches with green leaves because that is its natural food (didn't specify type of tree). the second thing is that there is a type of willow named goat willow. i thought that suggests they may eat willows. when i was searching on yahoo, i used search words like goat ration natural and goat willow

[Northern_bushrat]

Thanks for the link, ehl!
Willows we have plenty, not that particular type but lots of poplar, cottonwood and willow browse. Unfortunately they only have leaves from about June till September.

[annabella1]

I have been thinking about your question and I know that I read somewhere about using comfrey as a winter feed for goats. I tried to find the article I read about this didn't find the one I wanted but found a couple of others that were real interesting.

This one is about comfrey http://www.motherearthnews.com/Homesteading-and-Self-Reliance/1974-05-01/Comfrey-for-the-Homestead.aspx


This one is a real scientific account of alternate feeds for animals, it's kind of long so I also copied a couple of the paragraphs that apply to your question.
http://www.mosesorganic.org/broadcaster/12.6brunetti.htm

He said hybrid willow can produce four tons per acre of dry matter, and ranchers in Australia coppice it for cattle, sheep, and goats. "They go crazy for this stuff, because it's loaded with all these nutrients that they can't get in domestic forages." He suggested farmers start hedgerows by taking poor ground "that you don't want to ever plow again" and planting 30 or 40 light-canopy trees per acre, such as willow, mulberry, persimmon, filbert, kentucky coffeetree, or osage orange. "There is no problem getting protein on any of these plants," he said. For instance, mulberry leaves contain 26% protein, to go along with 3% calcium. "Protein's not your yield-limiting factor on the farm. Energy is your yield-limiting factor. Protein is the easy part. I don't know why farmers buy protein." Jerry said protein is abundant because nitrogen is--it makes up 78% of the air, and plants can easily fix it "as long as there is a soil food web that puts the nitrogen in a usable form for the plants." Energy is sunlight captured in chlorophyll and other carotenoids (colored pigments).
One advantage to silage is easier preservation of these carotenoids than with hay. "You want good green hay, in which these compounds have not oxidized too much." But one of the negatives about silage is it tends to convert peptides and proteins into NPN. "That's why I like to throw sugars on grass silage, to get it to ferment NOW." This fast fermentation prevents heat damage and spoilage. Jerry likes to use dairy whey, because it is loaded with lactose sugar. Lactose ferments into beneficial L-lactic acid and is also rich in calcium and potassium. Lime on the silage will also stimulate lactic acid production. He said old recipes have ten pounds of limestone and ten to thirty pounds molasses per ton of silage. "Then you get a really good ferment and less damage."

This one is about growing your own feed.

http://www.countrysidemag.com/issues/87/87-3/JD_Belanger.html

[Deberosa]

I really liked the article on comfrey - I've been considering that as a crop and now I am even more convinced it's the way to go to be more self sufficient on small acreage.

I have a small patch of comfrey now - but I can start larger patches in other areas really easily! I think it may even be the solution for what to grow in my huge dog run area - Martha loves to run around the perimeter but I end up simply keeping the inside part mowed! I could grow comfrey in there that would be largely undisturbed until I harvest it!

Thanks for the great links!

[Northern_bushrat]

Thanks for finding those links, Annabella! That's great info.

[annabella1]

The article on using the trees for feed recommends that you coppice the trees. Basically what that means is to cut the young trees down to ground level so instead of a trunk with limbs up high you end up with lots of little limbs growing directly out of the ground. The limbs grow like a bush up to five or six feet high. The cattle or goats can then just help themselves. If you provide just regular trees the goats will eat the branches as high as they can reach, but you would have to cut anything higher. I think if you plant the trees close together around the edge of the Goats pen and coppice them not only would they provide forage but also help keep the goats in the pen.

[LeatherneckPA]

bushrat Go to Homesteading Today (http://www.homesteadingtoday.com) and register. Then scroll down into the Livestock forums. I think Goats is the first or second one (I'm at work right now and can't get there from here) the folk there are very knowledgeable and even more helpful.

[LeatherneckPA]

annabelle what wonderful articles on alternative feeds. I especially like the one about all the root crops and "animal gardening".

[bee_pipes]

Yeah, I'm a bit late getting to the party, but excellent articles Annabelle.

Deberosa, I saw your post on Horizon Herbs (http://www.horizonherbs.com/) a day too late. Looked on the web for seed, plants, root cuttings, etc. Most of the places that google turned up were for medicinal or holistic type uses. The horizon herbs is a good one. The best I could do was Richters Herbs (http://www.richters.com/), an outfit in Canada that sells plants. They did have both varieties mentioned in the MEN article - bocking 14 and bocking 4.

For any of you considering this plant, please let us know if you find better deals. I know the articles have me rethinking about what I'm going to plant, both inside and outside the garden. I can see getting some sand this spring and making a better bed for carrots and the dreaded beet (yech!).

Regards,
Pat

[Northern_bushrat]

Okay, i finally found somebody up north in a similar situation, who has goats! He also lives out in the bush and his goats sustain themselves entirely by browsing on the wild shrubs and trees that grow there! He says they are smaller and give less milk than grain-fed goats, but that they're the only livestock he hasn't had to get feed for. He's in central Alaska. This is great news for us :D