A quality goat diet ensures the production of quality meat or milk. Providing enough food to meet your goats’ needs will help them grow faster and produce more milk or meat.
Although the goats still keep looking for food. They can usually travel far from their region in search of food. This type of food helps them meet their nutritional needs.
Naturally, goats are very hardy and tolerate weather changes well. They can survive for a long time without water in severe drought.
During natural disasters and food crises, they may even consume poor quality food. This type of survival on poor quality food is impossible for other animals.
Their mouth is very strong in all herbivorous animals. With their powerful mouths, they can eat any type of grass, different kinds of leaves, tree branches, etc.
Goats process food into quality meat or milk very quickly than other animals. Although goats eat all kinds of food, they don’t always like to eat the same food.
Thus, they should have varied eating habits. Goats generally do not eat the remains of another goat. They can understand the taste of food, but are not picky.
Even they can eat and consume food that other animals don’t eat (even touch). But for commercial production, you have to be very careful with the feeding of the goats. Always try to feed your goats quality feed with proper nutrition and energy.
Classification of feed for goats
Like other pet foods, goat food should contain the right amount of protein, fats, minerals and vitamins.
Goats generally drink less water than other domestic animals. Always try to provide them with fresh, clean water. Types of goat feed are described below.
dried
It is very difficult to consume such foods. These foods contain more than 18% fiber and less than 60% digestible nutrients.
There are two types of goat fodder. Dry fodder and juicy fodder. Succulent roughage is 75-95% water. Fodder sources are grasses, corn, napier, jackfruit leaf, mango leaf, guava leaf, cabbage, vigna sinensis, legumes, etc.
Goats have a difficult stomach. And they can easily eat roughage.
Granular feed
Grain foods or blended foods are easy to digest and enriched with various nutritional ingredients such as proteins, carbohydrates and fats. This type of goat feed contains less water and less than 18% fibre.
The total amount of digestible nutrients is less than 60%. The main grain feed sources for goats are legumes, wheat, corn, rice, chickpeas, triticum aestivus, potatoes, etc. goats, agriculture, etc.
Feed additives for goats
To prepare a balanced and nutritious goat feed, you need to mix different types of vitamins and minerals with grain feed. Along with this, you can get more vitamins and minerals from different types of vegetables.
By consuming roughage, your goats can only survive for their entire lives. But to commercially produce goat meat, milk, skin or fur, it is necessary to feed them various types of grain feed as well as roughage/grass.
Mix different ingredients in grain goat feed. This will improve the taste of food and the goat will digest it easily.
Main feed ingredients of goat feed
Goats need different types of nutrients in their diet. Below is a list of the basic nutritional needs of goats.
| food ingredients | Request |
| dry matter | For meat production 2.5-3% of body weight. For dairy production 4-8% |
| Energy | A: 7-8 grams per kg of body weight for survival. B: 3 grams per kg of body weight for body growth. C: 300 grams for 1 liter of milk yield. |
| Protein | Answer: For every 10 kg of goat, 4.5 to 6.4 grams of digestible crude protein is needed to survive. B: 70 grams of crude protein for 1 liter of milk. |
| Water | Goats weighing about 18-20 kg need about 0.5-1.0 liters of water per day. |
| Dry food: water | 1:4 |
| minerals | 147 mg of calcium and 72 mg of phosphorus per goat of 72 kg body weight. |
Balanced feed for goats
A feed that contains all the nutritional ingredients in the right ratio and quantity to meet the needs of the goat’s body is known as “balanced goat food”.
Every goat needs quality, nutritious feed for a healthy lifestyle and increased productivity. If your goats aren’t fed a balanced diet, they won’t get the nutritional ingredients they need.
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And it will reduce their production capacity and affect the quality of their products. Follow the goat feed nutrition chart.
| food ingredients | Child (%) | Dairy goat (%) | Goat meat (%) | Pregnant goat (%) |
| Gram | twenty | fifteen | twenty | fifty |
| Corn / cracked wheat | 22 | 37 | 23 | twenty |
| Sesame/walnut cake | 35 | 25 | thirty | twenty |
| wheat powder | twenty | twenty | 24 | seven |
| minerals | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 2.5 |
| Salt | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 |
| Total | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
In the case of dairy goats, providing enough greenery and water is vital. Provide your goats not only with complete food, but also with enough greenery. And provide them with clean, fresh water as needed.
