Re: Drought here,question on feeding hay.........

Posted by GoatWorld on August 05, 2002 at 00:28:42:

In Reply to: Drought here,question on feeding hay......... posted by Gloria on August 03, 2002 at 17:47:30:

Hi everyone,

Sorry I haven't been around lately to give much input. Have been extremely busy, hot and tired, not necessarily in that order.

My two cents on the round bales:

I have thought about the "wrap a cattle panel around the round bale" type of arrangement but just haven't gotten around to it. The problem with this idea are the horns. If you are not constantly maintaining (tightening) the cattle panel around the bale as it is consumed, someone is going to get their head stuck in the cattle panel.

The idea that I have been thinking about but have still yet to build is a wooden (or metal) fence that has slats in it that run at an angle. Some of you that have been to cattle dairy farms will know what I am talking about. The goats can get their heads (and horns through) but not the rest of their body. Here is a sketch of sorts I made just in case I'm not making sense ;-)

Just outside this section of "feeder fence" as I will refer to it, is where the round bale(s) will be placed.

Ideally, this area should be covered. Some of us do not have that luxury of course, but keeping the round bale and the goats dry is important of course. At the dairy farm where I worked for awhile, they took 55 gallon drums, cut them in half, and then placed them as troughs right in front of the feeder fence. This kept the hay (and grains) off the ground.

Now the only problem I see with this is that depending upon the size of your goats, the spacing of the 2" x 6"s running at an angle will need to be just right. If you have a herd of goats mixed in size, this set up might not work. The kids will be getting out while the bigger goats are kept in, or, the kids can put their heads through the fence but the larger goats can't. There has to be a happy medium or two or three separate feedlots according to goat size.

Once I get one of these built, I will make an article for the do it yourselfers. It sure would be nice to be able to leave the round bales outside the pen and just feed the goats daily rather than having them waste more than half of it by leaving it in the pen!

Best regards,

Gary

Follow Ups:

Post a Followup

Name:
E-Mail:
Subject:
Comments:
Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL:

Please help support the GoatWorld Project by becoming a member!.
Your membership helps to fund GoatWorld for the long haul!

Email: Contact INFO Telephone: Contact INFO	Designed & Hosted by: JOLLY GERMAN ©1999-2025 GoatWorld.Com
All written, audio, video and graphic material contained within this site, except where otherwise noted, is Copyright ©1999-2025. Some content may also be the property of contributors to the site, in which case their material is also protected by applicable copyright laws and this copyright policy. No material may be linked directly to or reproduced in any form without written permission. If you would like to reprint something from our site, simply send us an email to request permission to do so. Please refer to our REPRINT criteria. ©Gary Pfalzbot, Colorado, USA This site is run and operated by a Disabled Veteran