How we are sorting out the issue of feed for the goats
This is a major issue for all goat breeders. The goats have to be fed daily and they do eat a lot. Feed pellets are easily available in Malaysia but the costs have gone up to almost unrealistic levels.
Our Jabatan Haiwan (Veterinary Department) recommends the following types of feed in addition to the food pellets.
- Grass and Legumes – Guinea Grass (Panicum)
- Elephant Grass (Panisetum Purpureurn)
- Setaria
- Legumes (lpil-lpil or Leucaenia leucocephala), commonly known as Petai Belalang in Malaysia
- jackfruit leaves
- Sesbania grandiflora (pokok turi or pokok geti)
- Glyricidia maculate (I am not sure of the local name).
- Merinda citriplia(I could not find any additional resources on this plant).
(It would have been great if the Jabatan Haiwan had mentioned the local names of the various plants).
The grasses recommended need land areas for planting. The luckier of the goat farmers may find the grass growing in abundance along rivers and streams and they can cut them for the goats. Others have to forgo land that may be used for other productive purposes and use the said land for growing grass.
Though there are huge areas of abandoned or untended land, we cannot just use the land and grow grasses for our feeding our herds as the land would belong to others. In the case of public land, there is the problem of free grazing cows and goats that may just saunter in and make a meal out of your hard planted work.
We have limited land in Ladang Fatima. We have 3 odd acres where the goats graze. This land is currently planted with mango trees and the goats use the trees for shade as they are released every day for their exercise. (The goats also love the young leaves).
To minimise the buying and use of feed pellets we have:-
- planted about an acre of elephant grass. This grass grows rapidly and takes about 45 days to maturity.
Elephant Grass (From Google Images)
- planted about 30 trees of petai belelang in the boundaries of the farm. These trees take about 2 years to grow to full size after which the leaves make great fodder. We also have another 30 trees currently in our nursery. These trees will be planted along the roadside as “back up”. These trees spread their branches quite widely so have to be planted fairly widely apart.
Picture Credit from As Sakinah Agro Farm
- planted about 60 trees of turi. In addition there are another 150 cuttings that have just been planted. These are quite fast growing and should be fully grown in about 8 months or so.
Pokok Turi - from Google Images
The plants are not fully grown as yet. Presently our workers have to forage for elephant grass along the banks of the river that flows just behind our farm. This is time consuming and offers us no food security. Insya’Allah this will be resolved within the next 5 – 6 months.
Feeding goats is an issue everywhere in Malaysia even more so with the raising costs of pellets.
Apart from what you have listed out for feeding, you can try also planting sweet potato’s leaves. Planted in beds they grow very fast and the leaves are easy to harvest. These can be supplemented to other greens. In addition the potato itself’s can be harvested every few months for own consumption and any extra/damaged can be peeled, dried and fed to the goats.
Our experience with turi and glyricidia is in that the volume is too small. A single mature branch is hardly enough to feed one goat per day! We use it as a supplement to the grass.
For your info Merinda citriplia is daun mengkudu.
Have you considered to supplement your goat feed with other available materials? We have found that feeding our goats with greens alone does not give them the boost needed to gain weight. We have experimented to great success an alternative recipe for their afternoon feed.
We use shredded grass, combined with watered down molassess, mixed to make the molassess stick evenly, then added with corn, dehulled soya bean, salt, yeast, EM and last added ’sekam padi’ which is the padi husk or use wheat husk. The ratio is in kilos as 5:3:3:3:0.3:0.3:0.3:10 and is for 50 young goats. The mixture must not be too wet, just wet enough to make sure that everything gets to stick together. We use different formula’s for adults, breeders, pregnant and growing goats.
Another plant we have been experimenting on is daun bunga kantan. So far it seems like it helps with those occasional coughing problems and runny noses, but too early to draw any firm conclusions.
I hope this information will help. All the best!
[...] ago, I wrote about our predicament of not having sufficient land for the growing of Napier Grass or Rumput Gajah for our goats. I then mentioned that we were [...]