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Lander, WY | Anybody familiar with goats? My 8 year old son is in his first year of 4H and has decided he wants to raise goats for a project (along with fishing and shooting sports). I have never been around goats, tried to steer him towards pigs since I grew up raising 4H pigs and know what I'm doing.
So far what I know about goats is they like to get out of pens so I found some used 5 foot tall game fence to build fencing out of. They like to climb on stuff, so need to make sure they can't get on the shed and probably put some old tractor tires I have in the pen for them to jump around on.
My big question is diet. Looks like their ideal diet is about 11% protein, 60-65% TDN depending on source of the info. What's the best way to feed them? Good hay? Pellets? On self feed? Feed twice a day? Sounds like goats don't do too well with grain, really need a roughage based diet.
Keep in mind, my theory of 4H animals is that they should be real life type operations. We don't buy $300 baby animals of proven winners, high dollar show feed and all that crap. We'll make sure he gets good animals, but not "show" animals, feed good feed, etc. but the kids' projects are to teach real life. Throwing money at something to try to win isn't what we are trying to teach. We are trying to teach do your best, live up to your responsibilities, learn some work ethic and ethics and values. Yes, the kids' projects are also expected to at least break even (which hasn't been a problem with selling one animal at the show sale and using reasonable costing feed). With that in mind, any thoughts to help me look like I know what I'm doing?
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Goats?
