# Grass vrs Grain



## DRJ Ranch (Apr 3, 2010)

I have been a grass fed operation for 2 years now and I have had the grass to feed the animals with no problems. I understand my grass feed 3 month old animal will look nothing like a grain/grass feed 3 month old, I have been wondering here lately would it be worth it to feed them with grain and get them out earlier to market would there be that much of a difference in my profit in the end?

Then I wonder if I'm giving them a better life IMHO animals weren't designed to eat grain and some of the research back that up in the beef industry with the grain causing problems in there feed lots and I understand that is with big business and not small local producers who have better conditions for there animals to stay in.


grass vrs grains there is probably a happy medium there some where but if I have the ability to hold the animal longer and feed out with grass hay which doesn't cost me much to produce should I do it?


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## 20kidsonhill (Feb 28, 2011)

Are you holding them until they reach 70 to 80lbs? If you are, At what age are you acheiving these?

weights? 

It would be interesting to see your results if you did half of them one way and kept records. I think you would get the most efficiency from your grain feeding at the rate of around 2% body weight each day. So a 50lb goat would get 1lb of grain a day. So a 25 lb kid would get around 1/2 lb a day. 

What are you doing with triplets, I find my multiples do a lot better on some grain fed in a creep feed area, we don't have problems with runts. 

Are you feeding your adult does after kidding any grain? Or is your entire set up grass fed? 

at what age are you weaning? Sorry for the questions, I find the grass fed farms very interesting. 

I think your statement of happy medium is probably the answer, maybe a little grain would help a lot, but free-choice grain would be a waste of money.


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## toth boer goats (Jul 20, 2008)

Giving grain... will help in quicker weight gain....the quicker you get them to your target weight... the better.....


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## DRJ Ranch (Apr 3, 2010)

Are you holding them until they reach 70 to 80lbs? If you are, At what age are you achieving these? Yes I hold them till 100lbs on with my last group I was able to gain on average around 12lbs a month so it took me around 8 months to reach target weight of 100lbs.

What are you doing with triplets, I find my multiples do a lot better on some grain fed in a creep feed area, we don't have problems with runts 
Are you feeding your adult does after kidding any grain? Or is your entire set up grass fed?  Everything is grass fed, as of right now I have only had one set of triplets and everybody was great. All but three of my does where 1st timers. I only bred 15 does this time around the rest where too young but I have had the billies in with them now. I have 4 billies in with all the does if they take I should have some where close to 50 does bred right now but the weather has been really warm. Out of the 15 bred does I lost three babies one was a new purchase who wasn't suppose to be pregnant so I had her in with the herd instead of separated the other one was also a new purchase but I have had for awhile that had a miss carriage this was her second breeding and only had one baby. Out of the rest I had 22 babies (all first time moms) I averaged 1.47 kids per mom and 8 girls to 14 boys not to bad of ration that not counting the three I lost.

at what age are you weaning? I wean at three months and rest the moms for two and re-breed

Now I'm thinking of dry farming 20 acres and planting a cow pea, barley and oat mixture to see if I can get more protein out of these type of feed for my weathers and also thinking of putting in 5 acres of alfalfa for my momma also but as of right now every one is feed a red/white clover and what ever they browse. and with the weather coming on good and grass growing well I haven't had to feed out any hay. They cant keep up with the growth in the fields on a 30 day rotation.


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## DRJ Ranch (Apr 3, 2010)

toth boer goats said:


> Giving grain... will help in quicker weight gain....the quicker you get them to your target weight... the better.....


Is it better though on the animal ? is it worth it? cost wise

From haws I can purchase a pallet of bagged 14% all purpose feed for 400 dollars or from Artois I can pick a tote of 16% goat feed any where from 2000 to 2500 lbs of food around .22 cents a lb and though prices aren't counting millage on the vehicle and gas to get them all to get the goats out a couple months ahead of schedule.

I guess what I need to do is pull out some test subjects and see how much faster I can get them out with the grain vrs grass and how much grain does it take 1 goat to get to 100lbs. Would 1 ton of grain and all the grass they could eat get a 100 goats to 100lbs or would it take more grain ?


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## StaceyRosado (Oct 5, 2007)

by grain feeding you are potentially loosing money since you are putting money. But since you have an unlimited source of grass/hay it sounds like then you arent putting anythign out.

The only thing i can think of that would help your profit margin would be if you could raise more kids. 

Say you can only raise 50 kids a year because they have to stay for 8 months to reach maximum weight and you only have so much space. 

Now if they left at 3 months you could get 50 kids through every 3 months or so and increase your output. So by feeding a bit of grain to get them to gain weight faster and then be able to leave you then opened up your pasture to be able to raise more kids.

Number are not exact just used for comparison purposes.


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## goatbless (Jan 10, 2009)

In theory maybe find out how much more you would be paying to raise each animal if you had to buy supplemental feed vs. what you pay each while they are grassfed..to see whether selling them earlier makes up for the additional cost? Also, doesn't grassfed usually fetch a better price per pound? I would think these factors may offset the slightly slower growth rate.. My two cents on whether it is better for the animal, I think it is(they say the milk is better for you- so probably the meat is too), and it probably pays off in ways such as less health problems. 
I will admit I haven't done grassfed, but I have been very interested in it and value learning of others' experiences with it. It would be very interesting to hear about an experimental comparison of grassfed vs grainfed kids to compare- I'm sure that how well they do with each method can vary after all depending on the breed and lines. Keep us posted? 
Ps- An additional consideration maybe worth thinking over is how much extra time you will spend hauling grain to the goats daily, work it out to cost in labor perhaps if that helps.. Time is money they say, so might as well include it in the equation too.. :wink:


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## 20kidsonhill (Feb 28, 2011)

My first thought:
Are you offering any kind of loose minerals to your breeding does and bucks? You have a young herd, If your answer to this is no, or just salt blocks, your does are going to wear-out really fast and your birth numbers are going to stay down, or go down, Our goal is 2.3 kids per doe, and never less than 2.0 even on yearlings. We also flush our does 2 weeks before breeding with some corn and grain to increase ovulation.

Just thinking out loud:

Is there a benifit when you market your animals to only having grass fed kids? Do you get more per pound? Just thinking out loud. cAn you advertise them as grass fed or organic?

Are you getting a great deal on hay or have lots of pasture, were that is off-setting prices of grain.
We pay $5 for a 50lb bale of grass mix hay or $40lb bale of alfalfa hay and $11 for 50lb bag of 16% medicated goat grain. In my mind I always figure the difference in energy, variety of feed and minerals in the goat grain off sets the difference in price. Making the higher grain price well worth it 

Perhaps you don't want to feed the grains/soybean feed to your goats. Perhaps you feel soybean products is bad for your herd, some people do feel this way.

Why feed grain?
1. the faster growth rate of grain fed kid.
2.probably higher birth numbers if your breeding stock was also fed some grain during nursing or for flushing reasong. 
3. faster growth rate would mean less time for animals to get sick, need to be wormed ect..... Do you have to worm on a regular basis?
4. Medicated feed for cocci would mean less problems with coccidiosis. Did you have to treat for coccidiosis a lot? 

5. Your yearlings would reach breeding weight sooner, allowing you to get young doelings into the breeding program faster. 

Keep in mind I am not trying to talk you into it. Feeding grain is a pain.
You will need more feeders and a way to feed grain, a space for each animals head.
A way to store the grain. Probably with the numbers you are talking about, storing grain in bulk to save money. If it is hot most of the year by you, feed has to be purchsed every two weeks for freshness.

Good luck on your decision.


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## DRJ Ranch (Apr 3, 2010)

I'm currently on 40 acres of irrigated pasture and we own all the haying equipment already its been payed off for along time, they get tested every couple months for worms and de-wormed if needed hay cost me at most 1 dollar a bale (this is not counting my labor) if I purchase a person field from them or around .50 cents a bale to make on our place. Granted i told my father that our pasture need some work and we need to put money into them and they would produce better in my opinion. They do get Mineral Blocks not the just the salt block but the full mineral blocks.

this is just my second year with them but the only shot I give is CDT but if any one is looking sick or down they get a trip to the vet so far I have had no major problems but I have been fighting foot problems all winter and since the rain stopped my foot problems went away but i started irrigation again so they might come back. Though I trim once a month and treat with koportox.

I see what you mean with the faster growth weight less time to get sick and etc, I have thought about culling heavy on animals who's tend to get sick more often need more foot care or who in general have more problems then others.

I don't breed does unless they are a year old even if they have the weight to me they need time to develop on the inside also.

I have thought about using the grain to flush my does before breeding and to use grain during nursing. I was wondering if I could get the same effect of a bale of alfalfa if I have been thinking of putting in a field of alfalfa for this.

I was also thinking of the faster growth rate issue and was thinking of renting 20 acre for dry farming a mix of cow peas, barley and oats, to see if that could increase my growth rate.


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## 20kidsonhill (Feb 28, 2011)

I think you would be happy with the results you get from feeding some alfalfa, if it doesn't cost you too much too put it in and care for the field. We did half alfalfa and half grass mix hay this winter with our lactating does and they milked like no tomorrow, we Also fed a little grain while they were nursing the kids, but we have done that every year. The hardest thing with the alfalfa, is they eat it like candy and you have to have a way to spread it out really well, They will eat every speck of the alfalfa hay before touching the grass hay and fight over it like crazy. We spread out a bale of alfalfa hay 40lbs in the morning across enough feeder space for our 15 does that had kids nursing on them and then spread out a bale of grass hay in the evening(50lbs). 

Just the alfalfa hay alone, might really help your growth rates. And add some energy to your does to flush them.

Are you in a selenium deficient area, have you had to use Bo-Se injections? If you had any weak legged kids at birth, or kids with weak tendons at birth your does need Bo-se injections or more loose minerals. 

If you can't get your kid numbers up when you does turn 2 years of age, then you should consider switching to a loose mineral. We have been very very happy with it. We use those plastic mineral feeders for sheep that are on a base and turn around depending on witch way the wind is blowing. The minerals are a little pricey, So you would need to justify the expense by increased birth rates and better health of your does. 

YOu can do blood work on your does to determine copper and selenium blood levels.

Also low copper levels and low levels of injested copper can cause a worm load problem. Worms hate copper. 

I like your idea of culling out animals that can't thrive in the grass fed set-up, but you might want to make sure your animals are deficient in minerals, specifically copper, this will cause the animal to appear to have many issues. I guess one could argue if you have to supplement them, compared to another animal that you don't have to supplement that would be a cull factor, but you may loose a lot of animals that otherwide would have been productive just because of copper. 

There is research that giving copper boluses or loose mineral drastically lowers the need to worm, We have been experimenting with this and have been happy with the decreased worming that we have been doing, further more, we had a doe who had a chronic worm load problem and we were getting ready to cull her and we stopped keeping offspring from her for breeding, only using her offspring for meat, and when we copper bolused her and gave her a few treatments of red cell, she has made a 200% improvement of condition and hasn't had to been wormed since, for like 3 months. We were having to worm her every month and she was staying anemic. 

also, you mentioned feet problems, they say a goat that has plenty of copper in its system will not have feet problems. You may wish to look into this. 

If you goats go through a door way or a cetain path on a regular basis you can spread out Zinc powder on the ground for them to walk through. 

We had 3 does give us a hard time this winter from us being behind on feet and a wet winter, we have finally gotten them back into shape after bi-weekly hoof trimmings and kopertox treatments. 

Keep in mind we just started trying to do the copper bolusing, this is very new to us. It is $42 for 25 bolusses and each bolus is enough for 2 adult boer goats, but you need to also purchase empty gel caps to poor half the copper rods into so you can divide the boluses up. $15 for that, so it is $57 for 50 goats. The copper is suppose to stay in there system for around 6 months. A dollar a goat does add up, but wormers add up quickly also. 

Don't forget if you start experimenting with grain and you are keeping males until 100lbs you will need to becareful of urinary calculi. especially if you are castrating. grain fed whethers pretty much have to have Ammonia chloride in the feed. 

Are you using some kind of a tagging system to keep records and to track the production of the kids? If not I would consider it. It would help with choosing whom to cull. Culling does who are producing less lbs of meat per year from their offspring would be my goal.


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## packhillboers (Feb 2, 2011)

DRJ Ranch of Anderson, 
I think that you live down the road a ways from us! Probably just a few miles! I always notice other people's Boer goats when we drive around. I have seen a few Boers off of Balls Ferry and other places here in Anderson, Cottonwood area. Somebody has some good looking goats and I think it is you! We are new to the goat business and are just raising a few for our own use. We have only 6 acres. It seems the goats do well on the blackberry bushes that grow all over in Anderson. 40 acres is a good bunch of land and with hay prices going up, it is good to have your own hay! We do grain feed as we live in dry land area and supplement with grass hay and provide lots of minerals.


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## Steve (Mar 12, 2011)

To me this answer is easy,grass fed is much easier and cheap!

Yea im cheap when it comes to buying feed,16% goat feed costs me 9 dollars per 50 lbs,i only give it to goats when they have new babies.Usually they dont go far from them to eat and are making milk.I will give it to them in winter before they kid too,winters are not good here and it gives them extra energy for heat.

Do you have to sell them at 100 Lbs?Around here the best prices are for 60 lbs.Keep them on the dams until they reach this then sell.If 100 is your best wieght and you got the hay and grass i would not feed the market goats any feed.Give some to the dams to bring them back up after nursing would be good,but alfalfa if cut and put up right will be higher in protein than most feed.

Have you had your clover hay tested?Clover has a high protien content also.

With corn prices going up every other feed by product will too.

Do some research on alfalfa in your area and see what the hay is making before buying feed.Check with the extension office near you they should be able to give you some info about it.

If you can feed more hay/grass and save money doing it i would stick to it.

I have a question,when do you try to sell your market goats?


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## 20kidsonhill (Feb 28, 2011)

Around here 80lbs seems to be the magic number.


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