Hi-Oh! To all my fellow Steemians!

I wanted to share with all of you one of my latest projects here on the Bluer than Green Homestead.

Today's project is a home made goat feeder.

Having kept the 4 Kinko/Boer mix goats that I own on a pasture for nearly a year it seemed to me that they just wouldn't graze and required LOTS of supplemental feed. They cried for food ALL THE TIME, even when the grass was knee high and green with life.

I was told that this was because goats are more browsers than grazers.

But according to Bruce McGregor, The goat specialist at the Victorian Institute of Animal Science:

Browsing means eating the leaves, shoots and twigs of shrubs and trees. Goats have special ecological adaptations for browsing such as a split upper lip, narrower muzzle, longer legs for climbing, different tolerance to plant chemicals, and the documented ability to travel further each day than sheep in search of feed.

However it is not correct to describe goats as browsing animals and sheep as grazers as this is a misleading description of goats. Browsing is a better description for the behaviour of giraffe, koalas and some antelopes. Goats are best described as mixed feeders. Goats tend to browse more than sheep if the opportunity exists for browsing. Goats can be kept on grazed pastures without trouble, as I have done for over 20 years.

With my goats, however, they fit the bill for such a misleading description as "browsers."

As such, I needed to create a feeder trough that kept their feed off the ground. Something that would make them reach and stretch to get the feed that they so craved.

I searched for different designs on Google and came across one that I figured I could build with the materials I had laying around.

And so, I set off on a goat feeder building adventure with my 3 oldest children. The following pictures document the progress.

In the end I had to readjust the height and put a few boards in place to block the little goat, Azura, from slipping up under the hay feeder and out to freedom.

All in all, the goat feeder took about 4 hours to build.

I built it from everything I had on hand, no fancy parts or equipment were required.

I had my children help me build it and our family legacy at the same time.

The goat feed stays high and dry and my children don't need to go into the goat pen to feed them. They simply drop the feed in from the safety of the other side of the fence. I mentioned in a previous post that the goats are rough, especially to the littlest ones.

I would say that this homesteading project turned out as a success!

Thanks for Reading!

As Always,