# Goats won't eat clover?



## Cygnet (Sep 13, 2004)

Just curious -- is there any particular reason our goats won't eat clover? We have at least four different types (with crimson and white being predominate) in our pasture, along with wild alfalfa. The goats won't touch any of them.

The pasture also has perennial rye, fescue, bindweed, carrots (planted for soil improvement, but the animals love them too), juniper stumps (which send up shoots), several unidentified weeds, and bluegrass. 

They consume all of these, even the juniper. And the bindweed. Two years ago, the pasture was more bindweed than grass. The goats love it, and I went looking for some a few days ago and couldn't find it.

But they won't touch the clover, and the clover is taking OVER. It's drowning out everything else. 

Will they eventually start eating the clover, because eventually, all that's going to be left is clover? Or should we plan on killing it and reseeding?


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

They'll eat it it they get hungry enough, but they are primarily browsers rather than grazers, so they will prefer other foods first.

Too much clover can cause bloat problems, but I wouldn't worry about it for now


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## marusempai (Sep 16, 2007)

Mine only eat clover when it gets tall, which not all kinds of clover do. Otherwise it is too close to the dirt for them to want to eat it.

I'm surprised they don't eat the wild alfalfa. We get some alfalfa volunteers from the neighbor's hay field, and the goats go crazy over them.


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## shaky6 (May 15, 2015)

Pampered goats just get ridiculously picky. I've got a pasture full of overgrown bahia grass, yet the bermuda is stubble high and the prevatt bushes are nothing but stems. I'm going to have to get a cow to even things out.


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## Cygnet (Sep 13, 2004)

Thanks for the input, everyone. 

Bearfootfarm, I wasn't aware that the clover was a bloat risk unless (like any fresh feed) you were feeding them hay and them dumped them straight out 24/7 on pasture. However, I was asking because I wasn't sure about the stuff, so thanks for the input on that. I'll make sure that if we get down to 100% clover at the end of the season that we start putting out hay too.

Marusempai -- the clover's elbow high to a mini goat. You can lose a chicken in it. LOL.

Shaky6 -- this. Picky picky. Ours go bananas over bindweed, which is supposed to be toxic. No ill effects yet, and they've been eating it for years. But they won't touch the clover. (They also love manzanita, which no other animal will eat, not even deer. The national forest which surrounds us spending millions to hire loggers to cut the manzanita to the ground around communities and campgrounds here because it's a fire hazard ... where it promptly comes right back from the roots. I keep saying they just need to bring in some goats to graze the stuff to the ground and keep it down, along with scrub oak and juniper and small pines, but they spend big bucks on loggers instead, and then let cattle graze the land ... and the cattle eat the grass and trample the dirt and then the manzanita just grows back thicker. Cows won't eat the brush at all. The Navajo rez is just north of us, so I can't imagine they'd have any difficulty getting experienced herders in here. </vent>)


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## marusempai (Sep 16, 2007)

Cygnet, your goats are clearly just crazy. Well, they are goats, after all. XD Maybe they'll come around...


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

Mine don't like it much either, but I really just think it doesn't taste that great.


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

mygoat said:


> Mine don't like it much either, but I really just think it doesn't taste that great.


Sheep seem to love it, but then what do sheep know?


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## CarolT (Mar 12, 2009)

I was so happy that goats loved poison oak and ivy. I'm horribly allergic and our property is loaded with the stuff. So what do my goats snub? Yep. And paw paws are supposed to be nasty to a goat. I had some volunteers come up and couldn't wait to taste some. Can't taste them if the goats strip all the leaves, fruit and bark off


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## jennigrey (Jan 27, 2005)

Clover is a legume, so it can present a problem when eaten in quantity. I think my goats know this and are self-limiting. An area that's had goats on it for a while gets imbalanced. Then I rotate in the sheep or horses for a while and they eat the grass and clover the goats have snubbed. Meanwhile, the goats are busy homing in on the weeds that the sheep and horses don't like. It is a good system for us.


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## farmerted (Dec 21, 2012)

Basically they don't want to put their head down, it's a survival thing, and also the reason I have to MOW THE Barnyard for them. Because as you know they don't like to get their feet wet, or wet at all, and when the grass is dewy, everyday, and long they won't even leave the barn.

So lazy, but real cute


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## farmerted (Dec 21, 2012)

CarolT said:


> I was so happy that goats loved poison oak and ivy. I'm horribly allergic and our property is loaded with the stuff. So what do my goats snub? Yep. And paw paws are supposed to be nasty to a goat. I had some volunteers come up and couldn't wait to taste some. Can't taste them if the goats strip all the leaves, fruit and bark off


sounds about right.


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## Wingdo (Oct 5, 2002)

Bearfootfarm said:


> They'll eat it it they get hungry enough, but they are primarily browsers rather than grazers, so they will prefer other foods first.
> 
> Too much clover can cause bloat problems, but I wouldn't worry about it for now


Been raising Boers for 12 years... never could get any of them to eat clover so finally gave up.


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## VA Susan (Mar 2, 2010)

Our buckling loves to eat the tall red clover we have growing just outside his pen.


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## moonspinner (Jul 2, 2002)

Mine love it when it's in the hay. Just out in the field they rarely touch it. And they are not picky eaters so maybe it's the head down thing.


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