Can Goats Eat Timothy Hay? (Find Out!)

 

So, while your goats certainly can eat timothy hay, if you have options for other kinds of hay they are generally more advantageous.

Timothy hay is lower in overall nutrient content, particularly protein, that your goats need plenty of.

Let’s look further into this.

 

Is timothy hay good for goats?

Fundamentally, yes, timothy hay is good for goats.

It does represent the kind of food that they should be eating, and indeed many large-scale goat farms do utilize timothy hay as their goat’s main feed.

Hay or forage should make up around 75% of your goat’s diet.

Goats are not grazers but ruminants, meaning they will eat a lot of grass, but they also need a lot more diverse and concentrated fiber.

This is what all hay is really—plant fiber dried out.

Timothy hay, naturally, fits this bill in essence.

If your goat was eating a regular diet of timothy hay, you are won’t notice any serious issues and, as long as they have balance elsewhere in their diets, they should remain happy and healthy.

That said, timothy hay is comparatively very low in nutrient content compared with other kinds of hay.

Typically, timothy hay is used to feed smaller animals like rabbits.

Though a goat and a rabbit may have a somewhat similar diet, they have different nutritional needs.

So, essentially, timothy hay is perfectly safe for your goats.

However, as I said, it not only produces more waste than other kinds of hay, it isn’t as nutrient rich, either.

So, you’ll have to buy a lot more in order to fulfil their needs.

But is it actively bad?

 

Is timothy hay bad for goats?

As you’ve seen above, it is not inherently bad for them.

There’s nothing in it that will do them harm.

It’s safe for them to eat, and is often the choice of hay for many farms.

That said, your individual goat’s diet would benefit more from other kinds of hay.

Where timothy hay can be bad for your goat is if they aren’t getting the full amount of nutrition, they need from it. indeed, for larger goats, this can be a real worry.

If your goat isn’t getting the nutrients it needs, then it will start to show signs of nutrient deficiencies.

While, again, this is likely quite rare and, in most cases, you can feed timothy hay without much issue, the fact remains that timothy hay is simply not an advantageous choice in any real way.

It’s usually no cheaper, it produces more waste so you would have to buy extra anyway, and it is nutrient deficient compared with other types.

So, while the hay itself is not bad for your goats, there are other, much better options—even ordinary grass hay is much better.

 

Can goats eat timothy hay pellets?

Pellets might be the better way of getting timothy hay into your goat’s diet, if you wanted to do it as part of a more balanced diet.

Indeed, if you did provide timothy hay alongside other kinds of hay there may well be numerous benefits to doing this.

Nonetheless, I would still recommend a different variety as their main feed.

Pellets are more concentrated, and because they’re processed you aren’t going to lose a lot to stems and other waste.

If you want to give them timothy hay, pellets may be the way to go.

 

Can goats eat rabbit timothy hay?

Yes, they can, since timothy hay for rabbits is really no different from any other kind of timothy hay.

However, as I mentioned, the fact that timothy hay is packaged and sold specifically as rabbit food goes to show why goats won’t really get the full benefit from eating it.

Rabbits are much smaller, and rely on a quite different diet, much higher in oxalic acid.

So, while your goat can safely eat rabbit hay, it goes to show why you’re much better off feeding them a heavier, more nutrient-rich variety of hay.

 

Timothy hay is a great source of a lot of nutrients for many animals, and goats certainly would get something from it by eating it.

However, there really aren’t many advantages to timothy hay over other kinds of hay.

It’s lower in protein and overall nutrient content, meaning your goat would have to eat a lot more of it to get all the nutrients it needs.

There is a reason timothy hay is generally sold as rabbit feed—smaller animals like rabbits can get all they need from timothy hay.

Goats need considerably more for best results.

 

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