There are a lot of reasons we might want to feed something to our goats to help them gain weight.
Perhaps they’ve gone underweight, and aren’t at their healthiest—or perhaps you’re just getting them ready for a show.
In any case, there are plenty of options for foods you can feed them to help them gain weight.
Today, we’re going to look at some of the best options to help your goats gain weight quickly and healthily.
Let’s get started.
Hay
Hay is the backbone of a goat’s diet.
In most cases, it will make up the great bulk of your goat’s diet.
It’s easy to obtain in large quantities, so your goats can munch away on it throughout the day.
While it’s not going to help them gain a lot of weight very quickly, ultimately hay will always be important to healthy weight gain.
Without it, they would simply be over nourished on other foods.
Hay is always going to be important to helping your goat gain weight from other foods.
That said, the single most efficient food for goats to gain weight quickly is grains.
Grain
Grains are your goat’s best option for quick weight gain.
Most importantly, grains are very high in protein.
This protein will help build your goat’s muscles and overall body mass.
Goats can struggle to get a concentrated form of protein in their diets elsewhere, so grains are really good for that.
Oats or corn are usually considered the best.
They have a high protein content while not being too high in other, less beneficial nutrients for your goats.
Grain should still only make up a small part of your goat’s diet—10-15% at most.
Any more than this is potentially hazardous to the goat’s health.
Grain, in conjunction with hay, forage and treats, is your fastest route to weight gain.
Forage/pasture
So, the baseline of the goat’s diet will most likely be made up of hay and grains.
Don’t forget, though, that goats are natural browsers and ruminants.
Unlike grazers, like sheep and cows, they prefer to roam around a large pasture and find vegetation to eat.
This kind of forage is really important to their diet, and will also help them along in gaining weight.
Though it’s often considered less practical than hay or grain feeds, many industrial-scale studies have shown goats are far better off with high-quality forage than with other, more conventional feed types.
Grow a wide range of things in their pasture for them to find.
Vegetables
With the hay, the grains, and the available forage, your goats already have a great shot at gaining some healthy weight.
But it doesn’t stop there.
They will also need a variety of treats on top of their regular diet.
Overall, this should only represent a small part of their diet—less than a quarter.
One of the best kinds of treat you can give them is vegetables.
They love virtually all vegetables, and virtually all vegetables are safe for them, with a few exceptions.
This will not only contribute to their nutrient profile, but it will also keep them happy and interested in their diet, and thus more inclined to eat more.
Pumpkin, carrots, turnips, swede, broccoli—all of these are great options to help your goat gain weight.
Fruit
Naturally, then, fruits are also a really essential part of a goat’s diet.
You should see fruit and veg in the same category in the goat’s diet—as treats.
Nonetheless, you should still try to get a roughly equal balance of fruit and veg.
Fruits can be quite sugary, so be careful about exactly what you give them, and how much.
But once you’ve found a nice balance, the nutrient-rich fruits will help them gain weight really quickly.
Vitamin supplements
With grain, hay, forage, and fruits and vegetables, you’ve got all the actual foods you need to help your goat gain weight.
Now, you’ll need to think about supplements for their diet.
Vitamin requirements are less important than minerals, but ultimately they’re still vital to helping your goats metabolize the foods they eat.
You can get formulated vitamin supplements, but they will need vitamins A, B, C, D and K.
This will help them gain weight.
Mineral supplements
More important are the mineral supplements.
Your goats need minerals to properly process what they eat as well as regulating many other bodily processes important for weight gain.
Copper deficiency is a common problem in goats, so formulated mineral supplements are always a good idea.
There are nine essential minerals they will need: copper, zinc, selenium, sodium, iron, manganese, iodine, phosphorous and calcium.
Without these, they won’t gain weight quickly or easily.
So make sure to get those supplements.
Water
Finally, make sure they have plenty of fresh water available whenever they might need it!
Water might not be the most obvious thing for aiding weight gain, but it’s ultimately really important to help them healthily digest the rest of their feed.
They can usually get most of the water they need from grass and vegetation alone, but always give them the option of fresh water.
So, it’s really not that complicated—it’s just about getting the right variety and balance of the things they need.
As long as they have a good amount of grains, hay, treats like fruits and vegetables, and ideally a wide pasture to roam and forage, they should gain all the weight they will need.
For quick, short term weight gain, though, grains are probably best.