What are goats good for? What benefits do they provide? For small farmers, hobby farmers, and homesteaders alike, goats can be a great choice of species. They’re good for milk, meat, fiber, and more.

What Are Goats Good For?

So what are some of the benefits of raising goats?

• Raise your own meat. Raising goats for meat can be a great thing to do for your own family, to provide for your food needs, but it can also be a profitable small farm business—if thought through carefully and with an eye to where you will market it.
• Produce milk. Dairy goats give copious amounts of milk, usually more than a family can use. You can make goat cheese, goat yogurt, and whatever other dairy products you can dream up (goat kefir?). If you are a small farmer, goats can help you achieve a goal of producing value-added products like cheese, and yogurt—or just sell fresh goat milk. There is a good market for it with folks who can’t tolerate cow dairy
• Produce soap. Goat milk makes a wonderful, soft, and mild soap that is often used by people with sensitive skin.
• Produce fiber. Goats are good for producing fiber as well as milk and meat. They’re so versatile. Angora and Pygora goats yield mohair, while cashmere goats produce cashmere. Again, you can take raw goat fiber and spin it into yarn and knit, weave, or crochet it into any number of value-added products.
• Clear land. Goats are great browsers and they love to eat weeds and blackberry brambles. Pasture them on whatever you want to clear out and let them act as living brush hogs.
• Use them as pack animals. Goats can be trained to carry your gear on hikes, and are especially suited to steep and rocky paths. They can easily carry 20 to 30 percent of their body weight, and they have a minimal environmental impact. They can eat what they find as they travel by browsing along the trail, so you don’t have to pack food for them. Goats can also be taught to pull carts.
• Use their dung as fuel. Plenty of people all over the world use goat dung to fuel fires. This is certainly an option for those of us who are big on self-sufficiency.
• Use their skin and hide. Goat skins can be dried and tanned like leather and used in any number of products, including goatskin gloves. Goat hides (with hair still intact) are traditionally used in Africa to make drum heads. Goatskin rugs can also be made.
• Easy to train and handle. Goats are social animals and they are easy to train. They’re easy to handle, even by children. They’re a good size compared to cows, and that size makes them easier to handle as well.
• They’re inexpensive to keep. Goats are not only useful, but they’re also thrifty. Because they can browse and because they don’t need an overly fancy shelter (just some really good fencing), goats can be a very economical animal for the small farm
• They’re versatile. Milk, meat, fiber, carrying packs, and even fuel from their dung? Goats are good for all of these things.
• They make manure. Okay, any animal does, but goat manure is great for fertilizing your fields. An average goat produces about 300 pounds of manure each year, and the feces are in pellet form, which makes them easy to handle. Goat manure is a good source of potassium, potash, and nitrogen, and possibly other minerals as well.

If you’re starting a goat herd, you must know some basics about the animals you’re tending, including how to feed them properly. Whether raising goats for meat, establishing a dairy herd, or practicing sustainable living on your homestead or small farm, you’ll need to give your goats the attention they need to thrive.

One good rule of thumb for feeding and tending goats: don’t drastically change the animals’ diet all at once, even when you learn how you might better feed them. Don’t feed them large amounts of new food, either. Both of these practices can lead to a major digestive upset for your goats. Change their diets slowly, giving the bacteria in their rumen (their first stomach, made for the initial step in digesting the plants they eat) time to adjust.

Below is some advice for what and how to feed the goats on your homestead or farm.

Range: Browsing and Pasturing Goats

Goats are well-known for their ability to pasture on anything, from lovely green grass to scrubby woods where they can eat young trees and hardy shrubs. They’re browsers, not grazers (for example, cattle, sheep, and horses are grazing species), meaning they’re excellent at clearing rough, overgrown land.

Let go of the myth—if you’ve heard it—that goats make good “lawnmowers.” They’d prefer to browse if given a choice.

Goats are ruminants, animals who eat plants and digest them through a four-compartment stomach. However, the animals are more like deer than sheep or cattle—which eat lots of grass—regarding nutrition. Goats shouldn’t eat a diet of entirely fresh grass.

Hay

Hay is the main source of goat’s nutrients apart from their range. (it’s what they mostly eat in the winter when they don’t have access to the range). You can give your goats grass or legume hay, such as clover or alfalfa.

Each goat needs about two to four pounds of hay daily, minus what they might forage on while at pasture. You can feed hay freely or offer it strictly twice a day.

If you can’t make a good range available for your goats, horse-quality dry grass hay is acceptable. Goats require hay (roughage) for their rumen to function properly. The long fiber is necessary for this. The rumen is the first stomach compartment, rich in live bacteria, that begins to digest the fiber. A healthy goat has a large rumen that feels spongy.

Alfalfa hay is also popular for feeding goats and has more protein, vitamins, and minerals than grass hays, typically. It can be a good choice for feeding milkers as it has more calcium as well.

Chaffhaye

Chaffhaye is made by cutting early alfalfa or grass, chopping it, mixing it with molasses and a probiotic culture called bacillus subtilis and vacuum-packing it. The hay ferments in the container, adding beneficial bacteria for the goats’ rumens. Chaffhaye can be fed as a hay alternative, with more nutrient density than hay. One 50-pound bag of chaffhaye equals roughly 85 to 100 lb of hay.

Grain Feed

Grain feed or pelleted grain mix can add protein, vitamins, and minerals to your goats’ diet. Most farmers supplement with grain feed when necessary—such as does who are raising multiple kids or in bad weather—but foraging and browsing are the foundation of good goat nutrition. Grain should not be overfed: it can make goats fat, cause illness and even death.

Some goat farmers like to have a livestock nutritionist formulate a goat pellet for use when supplements are needed. The local livestock nutritionist can tailor the feed to your area conditions, minimizing problems. You can also have your hay tested to add to the information that your livestock nutritionist will use for formulating this feed.

Minerals

Loose minerals formulated for goats should be offered free choice. Feed minerals individually, not in blocks that contain combinations of them.

Kitchen and Garden Scraps

Goats will do fine eating your compost, for the most part. Egg shells can be problematic, but most other basic kitchen and garden compost is fine for goats as long as they’re used to it.

Raisins and corn chips, just a few, or a slice of bread, make nice “treats” for goats but don’t overdo them.

Feeding Equipment

You will also need some equipment for feeding your goats. Nothing fancy, but storing hay in a manger will help goats access it and waste less. And food containers or buckets will also help reduce waste. Metal or plastic feed storage containers with tight-fitting lids will keep pests out of your feed.

For your goats you may need:

• Feed storage containers
• Food buckets
• Water buckets
• Hay manger
• Mineral feeder

Water

Of course, your goats need access to fresh, clean water at all times. You may want to raise your water bucket off the ground onto a platform or in an old tire, so it’s less likely to get kicked over or pooped in. In winter, you will need to use a water heater so that your goats’ water isn’t freezing cold and doesn’t turn to ice.