Short answer: A goat needs roughly 3 to 4 percent of its body weight in dry matter each day, and most of that should come from browse, grass and crop residue. Concentrates, minerals and clean water fill the gaps. The real test is body condition, so score your goats every few weeks, change feed slowly and build a stored supply before the grazing thins.
Key takeaways
- Let forage carry most of the diet, and use concentrates as a top-up for pregnant, nursing and growing animals.
- Work out intake from body weight in dry matter, not from the number of bags in the store.
- Change feed over one to two weeks, because sudden changes cause bloat and scours.
- Score body condition every two to four weeks and act early on any animal that is losing weight.
- Keep a goat-specific mineral lick and clean water in front of the herd at all times.
How much a goat eats, counted in dry matter
Take a 25 kilogram doe. At 3 to 4 percent of her body weight in dry matter, she needs somewhere between 0.75 and 1 kilogram of dry matter a day. That is the number to plan around, and it is a different thing from the weight of grass you pile in front of her. Fresh grass is mostly water, so a heap that looks generous may carry much less dry matter than you think.
Working in dry matter is the habit that separates a planned feed programme from a guess. Ask the feed seller or your extension officer for the dry matter content of the feeds you use, or dry a sample in the sun until it stops losing weight. Once you have the figure, a bundle of fresh browse becomes a calculation rather than a feeling.
The table below sets out the main feed sources you will meet in Ghana, the job each one does and the thing that usually goes wrong with it. Treat it as a checklist for the kind of feeds to consider, not a ration.
| Feed | Main job | What goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Gliricidia and other browse legumes | High protein leaves for the lean months | Fed as the only food, or in large amounts without introduction |
| Guinea grass and elephant grass | Bulk and daily energy from the paddock or cut-and-carry | Goes woody and low in protein once it is allowed to mature |
| Groundnut haulm | Dry protein-rich roughage | Gets mouldy if stored damp |
| Cassava peels and leaves | Energy and some protein once properly prepared | Fed fresh or unprocessed, when the toxin risk is highest |
| Maize and wheat bran | Concentrate energy for pregnant, nursing and growing animals | Overfed to animals that do not need it, leading to fat does |
| Goat mineral lick | Calcium, phosphorus, salt and trace minerals | Left out in the rain, or replaced by an unsuitable product |
Browse trees that carry goats through the lean months
Browse is the cheapest protein a goat keeper can grow. Gliricidia is common in Ghanaian farms because it is quick to establish from cuttings, it can be planted as a living fence, and its leaves are a useful source of protein when grass is scarce. Leucaena is another legume that many keepers grow for fodder, with the caution that its leaves contain a compound that can cause problems if the animals eat too much or too suddenly. Our leucaena leaf meal article covers the same plant on the poultry side.
The safe pattern is to feed browse as part of a mixed diet, not as the only food. Start with small amounts, let the animals get used to the leaves over a week or two, and watch the dung and appetite. Wilting the leaves for a few hours before feeding reduces the risk with some species. Your extension officer can confirm which trees you have, which are safe in your area and how much to feed.
Moringa leaves are often fed in small quantities as a supplement, and keepers who already grow the tree for household use can offer some of the pruned leaves to goats. Treat it the same way as any new leaf: introduce it slowly, and keep the bulk of the diet in grass and residues.
Grasses and legumes for the paddock and the cutting bench
Guinea grass and elephant grass are the workhorses of many goat systems in Ghana. They grow fast in the rains, and they can be cut and taken to the pen instead of being grazed on open ground, which saves the animals from walking long distances on poor ground. The trick is timing. Cut grass young, while it is still soft and leafy. Once the stems thicken and go woody, the protein falls and the animals leave more of it in the trough.
Ground-cover legumes such as Centrosema and Calopogonium can be planted between rows of trees or along the edge of a paddock. They add protein, improve the soil and give the goats something green to graze when the grasses have gone tough. Feed legumes in moderate amounts, particularly when the animals are not used to them, because a large, lush legume meal eaten when the animals are hungry is a common cause of bloat. For the paddock layout itself, our paddock rotation article is a useful companion.
If you use cut-and-carry, fix the cutting schedule to the growth of the crop rather than to the convenience of the farmer. A heap cut on a Sunday and left until Tuesday will heat and lose value. Cut what you can feed within a day or two and dry the rest properly before storage.
Crop residues, peels and the cyanide question
Crop residues turn waste into feed, but some of them need preparation first. Maize stover, rice straw and sorghum stalks are bulky and poor in protein, so they work best as the base of the diet with browse or concentrate added on top. Dry them well after harvest, and store them off the ground under cover.
Cassava is the one that needs a clear warning. Fresh cassava peels and leaves carry compounds that give off cyanide once the tissue is cut or chewed, and the risk is highest with fresh, unprocessed material. Keepers who feed cassava products should follow the preparation methods that their extension officer recommends, which usually involve drying the peels thoroughly in the sun, or fermenting or cooking them, before the feed goes to the animals. Do not hand fresh peels to goats because they are cheap and plentiful.
Plantain peels and groundnut haulm are both useful, with different limits. Plantain peels are wet and can spoil quickly, so dry them or feed them the same day. Groundnut haulm is valuable dry roughage (our groundnut haulm guide covers its use with birds), but a damp heap grows mould, and mould in groundnut products is a serious health risk. Our feed storage guide explains the rules for keeping those residues safe.
Concentrates: where they fit and how to start
Concentrates are feeds high in energy or protein, such as maize bran, wheat bran and dried brewers grains. They have a place, mainly for does in the last weeks of pregnancy, does that are nursing, and kids that are growing towards sale weight. For a maintenance doe on good browse and grass, they are often unnecessary, and feeding them anyway adds cost and fat.
Start concentrate feeding with a small daily portion per animal, and adjust it by watching body condition rather than by following a figure from a book. Give it in a separate trough or at a fixed time, so you can see how much each animal takes, and remove leftovers before the next feed so they do not go sour. Introduce it over a week, because a sudden switch to rich meal can upset the rumen and cause acidosis, which shows up as dullness and loss of appetite.
Keep concentrates dry and away from the poultry store. For the pregnancy side of the feeding question, our goat breeding and kidding guide sets out when a doe needs the extra feed. Many keepers buy bran in the same market as chicken feed, so label the bags and keep them in separate stores.
Minerals and salt, and why goats are not sheep
A mineral lick costs little, and it guards the herd against the slow losses that come with mineral shortfall. Goats need calcium, phosphorus, salt and a range of trace minerals, and browse and grass alone do not always provide them in the right balance, particularly for does in late pregnancy and nursing kids.
Buy a product made for goats, and read the label to see what it contains. Do not give sheep-specific products without checking first, because sheep are much more sensitive to copper than goats are, and a mineral mix that suits one species can harm the other. Your vet or the agro-input shop can point you to a suitable product, and your extension officer can confirm whether your local forage needs extra supplementation.
Keep the lick dry. A block that sits in the rain loses its salt and begins to crumble, and a damp powder clumps and goes off. Put it in a covered rack at head height, so the animals can reach it without standing in dung.
Water that gets drunk, not just put out
Water is the cheapest thing a goat eats, and the thing most often neglected. A goat drinks more in hot weather, and a pen that has been left without water for an afternoon will show it in the animals' appetite and their weight within days. Provide clean water every day, fill the drinker in the morning and check it again at midday in the dry months.
Raise the drinker so it sits at a height the animals can reach without climbing or kneeling in dung. Clean it every few days with a brush and fresh water, and keep the drinker out of the reach of poultry, because birds carry droppings into water. In the dry season, plan how much water you need for the herd each day and where it will come from, because a long walk to the well can cut the amount the goats drink.
Changing feed without causing bloat or scours
Most feed problems on a goat farm come from changing things too fast. A new grass, a new legume, a new bag of bran or a sudden jump in the amount of concentrate can all upset the rumen. The animals do not complain. They simply go quiet, stop chewing the cud or develop loose dung, and by then the problem is already under way.
- Introduce every new feed over one to two weeks, starting with a small share of the total and increasing it step by step.
- Do not turn animals out onto lush, wet legumes when they are hungry, because that is the classic set-up for bloat.
- Wilt cut leaves for a few hours before feeding, especially new browse species.
- Keep the feed fresh, and remove leftovers before they heat and spoil.
- Watch for a swollen left side, restlessness, grinding teeth or a fall in appetite, and call your vet at once if they appear.
A calm, regular feeding time does more for a herd than most supplements. Goats that know when the feed comes settle quickly, and the keeper can see exactly who is eating and who is not.
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Building the dry-season store in the rains
The store is the difference between a herd that holds weight through the hard weeks and one that starts to fall apart. Work out the store from the herd, not from a rule of thumb. Count the animals, multiply by the dry matter each one eats, and multiply again by the number of weeks you expect to be short.
Take ten goats at 0.9 kilograms of dry matter each per day. That is 9 kilograms a day for the herd. Over 120 days without usable grazing, the store needs to hold about 1,080 kilograms of dry matter. The number is your target, and it is the figure to check against what you have in the barn, not the bags you hope to buy later. Your own figures will differ, so replace the example with your herd, your grazing and your local conditions.
Build the store in stages. Cut and dry grass and browse while it is growing well, bring in crop residues as harvest finishes, and keep a running tally in the feed book. A store that is short by a few weeks is still useful, because it buys you time to find the rest, but a store that you only check when the grass has already died is usually too late.
Reading body condition with your hands
Weighing animals is useful, but most keepers have no scale. Body condition scoring is a skill you can learn in an afternoon, and it tells you more about the state of a goat than a glance does. Score on a scale of one to five, where one is very thin and five is very fat, and aim for a middle score in most animals.
To score a goat, run your hand across the loin just behind the ribs and feel how much cover sits over the bones. Then feel the spine and the ribs. A thin goat has sharp ridges and little muscle. A goat in good condition has a smooth, firm covering. Check the tail head as well, because it fills out early when an animal is well fed.
Score the herd every two to four weeks and write the scores in the record book. Our West African Dwarf guide describes the frame and build to expect in a healthy animal of that breed. Thin animals go first when the dry season bites, and an animal that drops by one score in a month needs a closer look. Separate it, check its teeth and worm burden with your vet, and increase its feed before it goes further down.
Keeping goat feed apart from poultry feed
This is the one rule in the feeding programme that cannot bend. A few handfuls of medicated poultry feed is enough to make a goat ill, because the additives were never meant for ruminants. Keep every bag of poultry feed behind a closed door, never leave scoops on the floor, and never mix poultry feed into goat rations to use up the leftovers. Birds for the same compound are a separate decision, and the day-old chicks page sets out the breeds we currently hatch, with the order form for requests.
Check the label on each bag before any of it reaches the animals. If you mix your own poultry feed, label the ingredients clearly and keep the goat feed in a separate bin with its own scoop. The mixing method is set out in its own guide, and the layout for a shared compound is in our article on keeping chickens and goats together.
A weekly feeding checklist
Run through this list once a week. It takes less than half an hour, and it catches most of the problems that appear on a goat farm before they turn into losses.
- Count the animals and check that every one has been seen since the last check.
- Score body condition on at least a sample of the herd, and note any animal that has dropped.
- Weigh the stored feed and compare it with the dry-season target in the feed book.
- Check the feed store for damp patches, mould and rodent damage, and move any suspect bags out.
- Confirm the mineral lick is dry, in its rack and not running low.
- Clean the drinkers and check that every animal has a clean water source.
- Look at the leftovers in the trough. Heavy waste means the amounts are too large or the feed is off.
- Check that bran, concentrate and poultry feed are stored in separate, labelled places.
- Update the feed book and note any change in feed, weather or appetite.
Questions farmers ask
How much dry matter does a goat need each day?
A common planning figure is 3 to 4 percent of body weight in dry matter. A 25 kilogram doe therefore needs roughly 0.75 to 1 kilogram of dry matter a day. Pregnant and nursing animals need more, and the figure rises again for growing kids. Work from dry matter rather than fresh weight, because fresh grass is mostly water.
Can goats live on grass alone?
They can get by on good grass in the rains, but grass alone usually falls short of protein, minerals and energy for pregnant, nursing and growing animals. Add browse, a mineral lick and some concentrate where needed, and check the herd by body condition rather than assuming the grazing is enough.
Is it safe to feed cassava peels to goats?
Only when they have been properly prepared. Fresh cassava peels and leaves can release cyanide, so drying, fermenting or cooking the material before feeding is essential. Ask your extension officer for the method that suits your area, and never feed fresh, unprocessed peels just because they are cheap.
Why did my goat bloat after I changed its feed?
Bloat usually follows a sudden change, a large meal of lush, wet legume or a feed the animal is not used to. Call your vet at once if the left side swells, the animal grinds its teeth, stops chewing the cud or lies down and gets up repeatedly. Prevention is the easy part: introduce feeds slowly and wilt new leaves.
Can I give goats the same mineral as my chickens?
No. Poultry minerals are formulated for birds, and goats have different needs and different tolerances. Use a mineral lick made for goats, and check with your vet or an agro-input supplier before you use a product made for another species. Keep the goat lick in its own rack, away from the poultry feed.
How do I know if my goats are getting enough feed?
Check body condition every two to four weeks, and watch the trend in each animal. Good feed shows as a firm covering over the spine and ribs, a steady or rising weight and a settled appetite. If animals are losing condition, lift the feed or the browse allowance and look for worms, dental problems or water shortage as well.
How much dry-season feed should I store?
Work it out from the herd. Multiply the number of goats by the dry matter each one eats, then by the number of weeks you expect to be short of grazing. That gives the target for the store. Replace the example in this article with your own numbers, and keep a running count in the feed book.
