Diet

Goats are ruminants, which means they chew their food, half digest it, then regurgitate it before eating it again. When you hear people refer to goats or cows as chewing their "cud," they are actually chewing the previously consumed, partially digested roughage.
Roughage should make up the majority of a goat's diet because of their intricate digestive system. Remember that goats are browsers, not grazers, like cows and sheep, as alpacas are. The roughage is made up of trees, bushes, and shrubs. Since goats maintained in paddocks or pens might not have access to as much variety of browse as they would in the wild, it is crucial for us as goat owners to make sure their nutritional requirements are satisfied.
We are lucky to have a natural space on our property where our goats may browse once or twice a week. However, we purposely planted trees and bushes in other parts of our property to cut branches from and feed our herd in order to allow this region to regrow. We cultivate Grevillea, several varieties of Wattle, and Tagasaste (tree lucerne). Try planting any of these natural trees and shrubs if you have the room; your goats will appreciate it.
In addition to the natural browse we offer, we give our goats a daily diet of goat muesli and bales of Oaten hay or chaff. To a normal pre-mixed goat muesli from the stock feed shop (T&R brand), we add some more delights for extra supplementation when we produce a muesli blend for our goats. However, feeding pre-mixed goat muesli as it is will be good for beginning goat owners. Simply choose a high-quality brand; never purchase an all-purpose or multi-animal cereal as goats have different nutritional needs.
It is crucial to remember that hay, or roughage, should make up the majority of a goat's diet. Muesli should only be consumed as a "top-up" feed and in moderation. Ingesting too much grain or muesli can result in a number of major health issues, including scours (diarrhea), bloat, and even death. Due to the fact that their rumens are still forming, young children are especially susceptible to being overfed grain. We feed wethers (desexed males) a lesser ration than we give to does and intact bucks of the same size since wethers can also develop urinary calculi when being over-fed grain. For adult goats, we typically ration 1 cup of muesli per day, while for juveniles and wethers, we ration 1/2 cup.
Another crucial point to keep in mind is that a goat's food should never be changed abruptly or drastically. Scours (diarrhea), at the very least, is extremely likely to happen when the PH levels in a goat's rumen are thrown off, which is quite simple to do. If you decide to make any dietary changes for your goats (such as switching muesli brands), do it gradually over a few days, mixing part of their old meal with the new feed to give their rumens time to acclimatize.