goats and dog food

[picklespickles]

i took in a goat recently that apparently had never been fed hay before. seriously. it was in there for a week before he even touched it. he did nibble on plants in the yard, though.

the people told me they had fed him dog food. i started out with hay, offered veggies, etc. like i said he ate stuff in the side yard, but really didn't identify hay and such as food no matter how i handled it. after a while, i offered him some of my dogs food. he had no interest. okay. well.......

anyway. since then, he has come to understand that hay and vegetables are food. BUT i was low on money, so i switched to a low quality dog food for his yard companion, a dog. guess what, he freaked and when he found it in the dogs' bowl went to town.

so, at least now i know what brand they were feeding him. lol. i looked at the ingredients, and the first one is corn. so makes sense he would prefer that over the higher quality one whose first ingredient is meat.

have you ever heard of dog food eating goats before?

he has gained a good amount of weight since i got him and his eyes seem better. but i may let him have his cheap brand dog food treat once in a while. lol. ruff.

 

[kstaven]

Meat in the dog food can cause you a lot of digestive problems with a goat.

 

[picklespickles]

i know that.

i was wondering if anyone had been in a similar situation. i wouldnt' just start out doing this.

 

[nccatnip]

Hopefully someone with more goat experience will jump in here but I do not think dog food or corn would be good for a goat. They are foragers.

 

[helmstead]

We feed our goats all natural crunchy dog treats as treats - they LOVE them. We just make sure to buy the brand that has the least meat in them. It should, naturally and as you know, never be a staple of the diet.

It won't cause any problems as long as it is an occasional treat.

Goats and corn mix well. Again - in moderation. Corn is generally the trash of the grain group...so it does well in the goat diet. The CA/Ph ratio is such that it won't cause UC.

The staple of any goat's diet should be good quality forage (hay - esp alfalfa hay).

 

[picklespickles]

good to hear you can give it some without too much damage. this is like no other goat i've seen. i think he was raised mostly with city people who didn't have hay to offer. then when he came into billyhood, well, they couldn't hang with it. i probably wouldn't have either in their situation.

i was starting to figure out my feed bill and go okay, is this goat going to me more expensive or less expensive to raise on dogfood? lol


thanks for your experience, helmstead. i don't have any wethers, so the urinary is less of a problem here.

i actually make home made dog biscuits, so a cool idea to offer them some. wouldn't have occured to me honestly.

 

[helmstead]

Quote:
No, it's not. Bucks die just as easily from UC as wethers (and so can does). In our early goat keeping, our first buck died from UC as a result of sweet goat grain. Don't take chances with it.

 

[picklespickles]

really? i don't feed sweet feed as to me it makes them too hyper. there are other treats they like instead.

i always heard that it was the wethers due to the castration and non mating that were in the most danger. sorry you lost your buck.

 

[helmstead]

LOL Sweet feed doesn't make anything hyper - not horses, not goats. Too high protein can make them hot...but that's another post.

Really - UC can occur in any goat. Wethers that are wethered very young may have a higher likelyhood, but all goats can get it. Owner beware here, feed carefully. Goats are easier to kill than you'd think.

 

[picklespickles]

sweetfeed does make my original goats hyper and i have a friend whose horse it makes hyper.

maybe i misstated my situation here. i got a goat who was apparently raised his entire life on dog food. i am trying to train him off that. somewhat succesfully. but an animal who truly refuses to eat because they are not eating dog food, may be better off just eating it sometimes even if it makes him die early.

i am not talking about or even considering feeding a normal goat a diet of dog food.

i was trying to see if anyone else had ever come across, or even heard, of such an odd situation to see how they handled it.