While it’s relatively easy to figure out how to get balance and variety into your goat’s diet, getting them any variety in what they drink can be a lot harder to figure out.
If you’re wondering what goats drink, both in the wild and in domestic settings, you’ve come to the right place—so what do goats drink?
Whether in the wild or in domestic settings, goats drink water—the only exception is baby goats suckling their mother’s milk.
But this is really their whole diet at that point.
Let’s look further into this.
What do domestic goats drink?
Domestic goats drink water.
This is all they need to drink, and all they should ever drink.
Plenty of clean, fresh water every day, and nothing else once they are mature.
In a farm environment, from the biggest industrial farm to the smallest homestead, all they are ever given and should be given, is water.
They don’t need anything else.
Some may clean, filter, or otherwise treat the water in different ways.
You may want to collect water to allow the chlorine of tap water to break down or install a separate water pump to provide their water.
In any case, though, all they should drink, and all they need to drink is water.
How much, then?
How much water should goats drink?
It depends a little bit on the circumstances, and where in the world you are.
If you live somewhere exceptionally dry, without a lot of moisture in the plant matter, they need around 2-3 gallons of water per day.
That’s clean, fresh, every day, making sure they have easy access to it.
On the other hand, if you live somewhere with very lush, green grass and a lot of other plants with high moisture content, they may get by on around a gallon a day.
Some would suggest as little as a half-gallon, but ultimately you should always provide them more than they would drink.
Make sure they have at least a gallon per goat each day.
They will known when they need to drink, as long as the water is somewhere they can access easily.
What about goats in the wild?
What do goats drink in the wild?
Goats in the wild, you won’t be surprised to hear, also drink water.
Again, they will get some amounts of juice from berries and fallen fruits, but this won’t register as drinking for them.
They will still drink water, and depending on the local climate, may drink a great deal of water.
Mountain goats, for instance, often come down from the mountains purely to drink.
They don’t require anything else, and even a goat that has no access to fruit will get by just fine on only water.
As I’ve mentioned, the only exception we could see to this is baby goats—they don’t drink water, really.
What do baby goats drink?
Baby goats drink milk, for the first few weeks of their lives.
In the wild, they will suckle from their mother’s teat, and this will be where they get literally all of their nutrition.
They won’t need to drink water at first, or at least not very much.
Again, in very warm climates, they may need water to supplement their milk.
The same is true of domestic goats.
Many kids are, of course, taken from their mothers without suckling so as to harvest the milk for our own use.
In these cases, they must still be fed on milk from a bottle.
There are special, synthetic formulas we can use to feed goats in this way and harvest their mother’s milk.
What about other, healthy drinks, then?
Can I give my goat fruit juice?
No, you shouldn’t give your goat fruit juice.
At least, not in a pure form, from concentrate, or anything like that.
You can give them juicy fruits and they will enjoy the juice they get out of them, but this should only make up a very small part of their diet.
Fruit juices are very high in sugar, and so this can be bad for a goat’s health.
They don’t need fruit juice for hydration—stick to water.
Can I give my goat sparkling water?
This, also, is not a good idea.
Sparkling water will create massive bloating issues, as goats will struggle to burp out the carbon bubbles they swallow.
In most cases, it’s unlikely your goats will even want to drink sparkling water.
They’ll just avoid it.
There’s no benefits to feeding them sparkling soda water, in any case, so you shouldn’t give your goat sparkling water.
Plenty of clean, fresh, still water every day—mineral water if you like, although this is probably impractical and prohibitively expensive.
So, ultimately, whatever drink your tempted to give your goat: don’t.
All they need is plenty of fresh water, unless they are a suckling kid.
Clean water will keep them happy and healthy, and provide for all their needs.
Eating a small amount of fruit here and there in their diet will provide all the necessary juices they could need, so don’t go beyond that.
Fresh, clean water, and only that.
More in Drinks
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