Question From Subscriber:

What is the best bedding for goats - straw, hay or pine shavings?

Answer:

Some people ask whether you can use grass hay for goat bedding.

You could, but it's not an ideal choice.

One big concern is that grass hay is one of the favorite foods for many goats.

However, it is important that they only eat fresh, dry hay.

If goats eat moldy hay, it can lead to serious illness which can be fatal in some cases.

Goats might have difficulty telling the difference between hay bedding and hay for food.

They might be tempted to eat the bedding hay, especially if their other food supplies run low.

If we have moldy hay that has been wasted by the goats because it was dropped on the ground, we eventually rake that up and move it to our compost area.

Or we use it to cover muddy areas where we recently planted grass seed, so it can keep the seeds from washing away with the rain.

Bedding hay will tend to have poop and pee on it, and could easily get moldy.

If your goats decide to eat some of that, they could get pretty ill.

Because of that, most goat keepers will tend to use things like pine shavings or straw for bedding, rather than hay.

Straw is inexpensive, but it tends to have problems similar to hay.

Some goats like to eat straw, so they sometimes eat the dirty straw after it has poop and pee on it.

Again, that can lead to health problems.

 

Also, straw doesn't tend to be as absorbent as some other options.

Poop and pee can tend to sink through straw and go down to the soil, rather than being absorbed as much as with other choices.

 

We usually use pine shavings when it's cold outside.

These seem to be the most popular type of bedding among goat keepers.

We get them in big plastic bags from Tractor Supply which are simple to store and stack.

They make a really soft bed for goats and they're easy to sprinkle around.

They're cost effective and it's easy to spot clean with pine shavings.

 

You may have heard about wood pellets that are available to use as goat bedding.

They can be really absorbent.

But the downsides are that they aren't as comfortable as other types of bedding, and they're relatively expensive.

 

Let me toss out one more option to you that you may not hear about too often.

That option for goat bedding is - absolutely nothing.

Yes, you heard that right.

 

Bedding is more important in colder months when goats may need some insulating bedding to cuddle down into and stay warm together.

But, during warmer months, if the climate where you live stays pretty mild, your goats may like to simply sleep without any bedding at all.

 

That's the case here in South Carolina where we have our farm.

We've created some fairly open goat shelters, and we have raised wooden platforms inside to keep the goats up off of the ground.

 

We humans think of soft things as being more comfortable.

But we've noticed that our goats seem to love sleeping on top of a smooth flat surface.

 

We noticed this by accident when we saw our goats going to sleep on some flat, smooth boards we had laying around, rather than sleeping on soft bedding we had provided for them.

So we experimented with providing smooth, flat platforms for them, with no pine shavings or other bedding material, and they LOVE it!

And that's okay with us, since it saves us time and money not having to use pine shavings so much, and not having to muck out the goat shelters so much.

 

To be clear, we still do provide lots of pine shavings in colder months to keep the goats warm, and also during kidding season when newborn goats need help regulating their body temperature until they're bigger.

 

There really is no one answer that's right for everyone when it comes to goat bedding..

The reality is that you just have to try the different types of bedding for your goats and see what seems to work best for you.

Part of it depends on the climate and weather where you live.

 

I hope this has been helpful if you also have been wondering about the best type of bedding for your own goats.

If you have any other questions about this, let us know.

Take care!
Thanks,
Rebecca and Steve
GoatFarmers.com