Goat Feeders

If you have goats you know that they can be quite wasteful with their hay. Especially if you just feed hay on the ground. This can cost quite a bit of money buying hay for your goats. They will eat what they like and then make a mess of the rest of the hay so you give them more. We have made a few different hay feeders for our goats and they still waste some. It does depend some on what type of hay we are feeding as to how much of a mess they make. So, keep that in mind if your goats are being very wasteful even when you feed them in the best feeders you can. You might just have to change their hay.

Most all of our hay feeders are made out of scraps of wood left over from different projects or wood that we got for free. Depending on how many goats you have and the space you have will determine what size feeder you will need. We have single flake feeders in our small pens that can comfortably have two goats in them. We have a feeder that can fit about four or five flakes in and we have a whole hay bale feeder that I will be sharing with you. The whole hay bale feeder was good enough for when we first got our 11 Kiko does when they were young and still growing. Our herd has grown; we still use these feeders but we also have a bigger hay feeder that can fit 5 bales in it and we are thinking about how to make a hay feeder for our big round bales. It depends on how often you want to give them hay as to how big a feeder you want to make.

1. The One Flake Feeder. These are great for small pens and are screwed to a wall. We made them out of one by twos. They are twenty inches wide and twenty inches long. This fits one flake of hay very nicely. They are eight and a half inches wide at the top and narrows down to three and a half inches at the bottom. The slats are not exact but around three inches apart for the goat's nose to fit.

2. The Couple Flake Feeder. We used this one for three goats and their kids for one winter. It worked well and kept them with hay for the entire day. It is mounted to a wall. This is mostly made out of one by twos as well. This one is 62 inches wide and 21 inches tall. It is 10 inches wide at the top and narrows down to a 2x4 at the bottom. There are 10 slats that are randomly 2 to 3 inches apart.

1. The Whole Hay Bale Feeder. This one is so convenient. Put a whole hay bale in and cut the strings and you are done with feeding. The base of this feeder is a 28"x34" piece of plywood. It has four 2x4s as legs just to get if off the ground a little bit. The base also has a 1x2" edge around it to keep the hay they drop in the feeder. You will need four 2x4s for the upright corners. They are connected at the top with two 17 inch and two 15 inch 1x2s to make a square. the bottom is the same and then connected to the base. Then we used 1x2s for the slats. There are three slates on each side of the feeder. Center the first one and then on either side at two and a half inches away from your center one place the other two slates.

Everyone or at least every farm has old... can I use the word junk...just laying around. What's great is when you can take old worthless stuff and make it into something useful. This is one way to keep costs down when starting your farm; find and use old thing and make them into useful things you need instead of buying them. It really helps if you are creative and handy in building things. We tease our Dad about keeping old...well junk but there have been many times where his old junk has turn out to be quite useful on our farm. It is learning how to reuse and repurpose things and to make them useful again. It was amazing how much stuff we had laying around that we used for building our hay feeders and grain feeders.

Now you can most definitely go to a store or order online the hay/grain feeders you need for your goats and that is fine if you have the money. But most farmers do not or even if you are just trying to save some money and have some...well junk just laying around hopefuly this post will inspire you to reuse and make useful things out the the stuff laying around your farm.

Grain feeder. We only feed grain to our does when they have their kids to help them produce a lot of milk so the kids grow nice and then the kids also get grain until they go out to pasture. Our one grain feeder is quite a common build and I know others have made grain feeders like this. It is made out of a large pipe with wooden sides and legs.

Our other grain feeder is made out of a really old swimming pool. It is the durable soft pasctic so it could be bent and shaped into a feeder also with wooden ends and legs. So, get creative, save the money, and make the things you need if you can. Leave a comment with the most unique thing you have made from something old for your farm.