Re: winter lamb diet. goats diet and CAE

March 22, 2002

Goats do not like tough grass that a cow might pass up. Goat are very picky

about their feed when allowed to be.

It is true they would much rather browse than graze. But if they must graze,

they like tenderer grass than a cow. I think you would need to put the goats

through the pasture BEFORE the cows.

By the way, not all us dairy goat farmers raise our goats on pastuerized milk.

We tried going that route because of the CAE problem in goats. You end up with

goats that get sicker much easier than dam raised kids.

We have bought goats that were raised on a CAE preventive program to get new

bloodlines. In the past two years we had two of these animals drop dead in a

matter of hours from some acute undetermined digestive problem. We have raised

goats for 13 years now and the only goats we have EVER had a problem with were

the goats raised on pastuerized milk.

Shari

----- Original Message -----

From: Kroyer

' '

Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 10:11 AM

Subject: RE: winter lamb diet

I've been told by one goat farmer that grass (ie grazing) isn't as good for

goats because they are " browsers " rather than " grazers " -- meaning that they

naturally seek out non-grass forages. That was his rationale for not

rotationally grazing his transitional organic goats even though he IS a

rotational grazer with his certified organic cow herd. So I'm somewhat

curious about the discussion that will take place about this subject too. I

believe that goats should definitely still be grazing (or browsing), but

*what* they should be grazing is probably different than for cows. I'm

guessing that goats could probably be effectively grazed on pastures that

are allowed to have have a higher percentage of herbs and/or mature grasses

(rather than the tender young grasses that cattle prefer). One thing that

occurred to me is the possibility of using goats as part of the " clean-up "

for a paddock that had recently been grazed by cattle. The principle being

that they will " clean up " any of the coarser forages that the cattle passed

over. Many graziers use this principle for pasturing their chickens. I

wonder if it wouldn't make sense to either bring goats through after the

cows but before the chickens (giving the chickens more dung to scavenge bugs

from) or to bring the goats through after both the cows and the chickens.

Any of you goat farmers have any thoughts on this?

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