[BwanaNdege]

20 acres is not enough land to graze and grow food stores for ten dairy goats.

Have you seen Kudzu in the South?

[blackdog]

Goats prefer to graze on brush over conventional pasture. The best thing goats are for is to fence them into an overgrown neglected woodland and let them eat everything below five feet tall. They will chew Kudzu infested land until there isn’t a stem left.

[blackdog]

High quality dairy milk cannot come from Kudzu, Quack Grass, Ivy, saplings, etc.... The flavor goes too "off". Dairy goats and sheep need high quality, high protein hay @ 14% protein or higher. That means alfalfa. Alfalfa = milk.

I had over 200 ewes and ran short of stored forage in April. It cost me $7,000 to purchase enough hay to make it thru those last two months. I should have kept herd size at 100 head. 80 acres was not enough for 200 sheep. Sheep and goats are about the same in nutritional needs if milking. My sheep went thru one large round bale per day. Each bale was between 800 and 1,000 pounds.

That being said, pound for pound, goats produce a lot of milk over dairy cows. Our dairy goats we raised for our own household milk produced two gallons per day per goat in peak production. Sheep produce about a gallon, but it's much higher in solids and fat than goats and cows.

[5th MEB]

Will goats eat kudzu?