How We Feed Round Bales to Goats

We recently decided to try a different approach to feeding our 4x5 round bales to the goats based on a video I watched from Lonnie at Rolling O Farm. / @rollingofarm
This will help cut down on hay waste and takes very little time and effort to put together. If you have rain in the forecast you probably want to cover the top. Watch and see what our goats think about the change!!

[@learning2no]

What a beautiful herd. Great job on the hay.

[@buckwheathollowfarm]

Thank you!

[@SuperDuty23XL]

I need to do something different. Looks worth a try. Good video. Give them time, they will pick that lock haha.

[@buckwheathollowfarm]

Time will tell, but you know goats are mischievous. They are doing well so far, but if I had fence or panels that were 6x6 openings top to bottom, I would prefer it. They stay away from the narrower openings for the most part. I put those at the top hoping it would kinda fall down. We'll see. Good luck!

[@mattroberts9569]

I do the same thing with my sheep. Works great. Make sure to put some kind of roof over it. Nice video

[@buckwheathollowfarm]

Awesome! Yeah it needs a top. No precipitation in sight, so I was a bit lazy on this one.

[@NeilMurray-o2k]

I use large bale hay nets work a treat

[@buckwheathollowfarm]

Is that for goats? I'm worried they will get their horns caught in it and wrapped up somehow. But I have no experience with them.

[@NeilMurray-o2k]

I live in the UK ..have pigmy goats no problem with horns made a strong wooden frame over bale and secure pull tie cord to it stops net falling flat as it empties very little waste if any

[@bgengler30]

Have you tried feeding square bales?

[@buckwheathollowfarm]

I feed alfalfa from square bales, but only a flake at a time. Round bales can be left out in the elements without deteriorating too badly while square bales have to be covered. And square bales are more expensive around here. I'm pretty sure without a feeder of some sort, the goats would just jump on top of the square bales too and waste a bunch.

[@bgengler30]

Valid points. One could buy or build a feeder for square bales with a covered roof. We have done that for the horses. They don't leave any waste behind. We switched from round bales due to the amount of waste. But we always square bale our own fields.

[@buckwheathollowfarm]

Good thoughts. Do you store the square bales inside before feeding? There may be a scenario where I do something similar to you for the Alfalfa if we keep feeding it. My neighbor cuts hay off our field and he has round baling equipment, so that is what it is. Thanks for the insight!

[@bgengler30]

@@buckwheathollowfarm yes we have all the hay we need for the year stacked in the barn. We put a bale out everyday.