# garden leftovers.



## windsking55 (Mar 9, 2010)

It is interesting what my goats will and will not eat. They will eat the leaves and corn off of corn stalks but will leave most of the stalk. They won't eat zucchini. They will eat melons of all varities but wont eat most of the rind. They will eat pumpkins if they are hungry but don't love it. The seeds get eaten right away but the rest of any squash gets left if there is something they like better. They turn up their noses at the seed heads of giant sunflowers. Windfall apples are eaten but often left until the hay is gone. They will nibble at maple and ash leaves raked up from the lawn but will eat all of the willow leaves I give them. I have learned when kids go camping and leave their left over marshmallows in the trunk the goats love them even if dried and rock hard.


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## Bob Jones (Aug 21, 2009)

Mine won't eat anything fermented; pickles, sauerkraut, etc. 
They love bread, crackers and pretzels, but won't eat my homemade oatmeal cookies. And turn up their noses at chocolate.

They go for grapes and grape leaves before anything in the garden. But often prefer willow leaves to fallen apples. 

They prefer cherry bark to grass. 

They like turnip greens but not lettuce.

And they prefer whatever the goat next to them is trying to anything else, even if they have rejected it themselves previously.


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## Nanno (Aug 30, 2009)

> And they prefer whatever the goat next to them is trying to anything else, even if they have rejected it themselves previously.


Hahahaha! Isn't that the truth! I'll never forget when I offered Cuzco and the cat a leftover hamburger, thinking Cuzco would eat the bun and the cat would eat the burger. Well, the cat _wanted_ the burger, but Cuzco grabbed it. He ate the buns and tried to eat the burger, but it was too yucky for him, so he trampled it and stood on it, waving his horn menacingly at the poor pleading cat. He guarded that burger for over an hour before Phil and I decided to intervene.


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## imported_ashley (Jun 9, 2011)

I have been looking, but cannot find a itemized list of common garden things that goats cannot eat. My goats love squash but i am afraid to give them some things. What about peaches? I want to put them into the garden to clean it up but i want to be smart about it... If someone had a list of "okay" and "avoid", that would be great!


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## Nanno (Aug 30, 2009)

Hmm... I've never heard of any garden tasties that aren't good for goats. Mine love peaches, but they don't get to have them unless they're the really hard kind that don't sweeten up properly. Because the good ones get gobbled up by me! 

I thought squash, on the other hand, was only fit for goat food. I'd have to be starving before you'd get me to touch that stuff!


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## TDG-Farms (Jul 12, 2013)

Ya, there is nothing in the garden they cant eat cept rhubarb. But people shouldnt eat certain parts of it either so no surprise. I thought I once heard tomato vines are bad but they dont seem to like em anyways.

I can top the picky eater list  Legion will not eat ANYTHING but hay and grain. Not peanuts, or nutter butters or even chips. Though I did trick him into trying one once. He chewed a couple of times and then acted like he had just eaten a hot coal or something and spit it out. 


EDIT: Forgot to mention he eats everything just fine while on a hike. Why pine trees are good and tomatos arent, is beyond me


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## Nanno (Aug 30, 2009)

Cuzco wouldn't touch anything except hay or grain until he was about three or four years old. At some point he developed a taste for carrots, but only if he could steal them from the bag in the tack room or from your pocket. If offered one, he would recoil in disgust as if being fed poison. Finally, he developed a taste for a certain brand of horse treat, but those are so hard I think they helped wear his teeth down, so we're going to avoid giving them to any more goats in the future. 

It wasn't until Cuzco moved into our back yard where he was thoroughly spoiled that he developed a taste for a variety of junk food, leftovers, and scraps. Nibbles, on the other hand, has a natural affinity for all kinds of food and non-food alike. I have a feeling her milk is going to have a bouquet of very interesting flavors.


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## imported_ashley (Jun 9, 2011)

good to know...ours seem to like squash and apple cores, I did read somewhere that tomato vines were not good for them but I figured that. I did read that dried corn stalk can be poisonous but I have a friend that buys corn stalk bales for additional roughage for her goats and they love them. So corn stalk bales are probably okay? What about the greens from the squash and cucumbers? Can I just turn the boys into the garden when it is done and let them eat what they want? I am so afraid of giving them something bad... thanks for the advise!


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