# Hard Red Wheat as Feed



## Goat Town (Nov 20, 2010)

I have someone wanting to give me buckets of hard red wheat thinking I can feed it to my goats. I'm wondering if I can? I know here people raise cattle on winter wheat pasture but I don't know of people feeding the actual wheat. I've been reading online that the gluten in it might cause acidosis in ruminates not used to eating it. Those reports talk mainly about cattle though. So does anyone have experience feeding wheat to goats?


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

"Everything in moderation, including moderation." I think this applies here. I have fed a bit of wheat to the goats without problems. You could just mix a little in at a time if you have a place to store it. Any grain can cause acidosis in ruminants not used to eating it in large quantity. If you have chickens, they will like it too.


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## NWgoats (Jul 17, 2008)

I tried feeding a mixed whole grain feed that was 1/6 wheat. I had two girls who blew up like balloons every
time they had it. Quit using it and they were fine. I won't use wheat again. If you do, try a tiny bit like Nancy
mentioned. But keep a sharp eye on them.


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## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

My experience feeding wheat was similar to Michele's. It is great for chickens, though.


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## Blackberry Farm (Jul 7, 2011)

Can goats eat sprouts? I know they have fabulous health qualities for people and chickens. Just wondering how goats do with them. Especially if you are getting them for free!


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

I have been sprouting a little bit of barley for my goats. They love it, and I feel like it probably has some added vitamins they are missing because of it being winter and not having fresh green feeds available...I could just be waisting my time...I dunno. But, it really doesn't take all that much time. I just have 2 icecream buckets, one with holes punched in it, the other without. I soak the grains in the non-holed one, and do the rinsing in the holey bucket.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

OH what wondrous life to have sprouts enough for goats for free!!!!!!!!
Lee


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

I was feeding mine a grain mix of corn, oats, barley and red wheat I found. They loved it and it seemed to do fine for them. Probably the fact that it was diluted with the other grains made it less gassy.


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## Goat Town (Nov 20, 2010)

Well I've started feeding some wheat as part of my daily feeding, about eight ounces per feedingmixed in with their daily feed ration and that is shared by nine animals. The goats love it, but the chickens go mad for it. I'm thinking of sowing some in my pasture just because. I haven't sown any winter wheat in a long time and it may be too late and the wheat the wrong variety, but it's worth a try.


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## fmg (Jul 4, 2011)

In a pasture, they will probably eat the wheat as grass before it goes to seed, especially if you rotate properly, but that's okay too.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

fmg said:


> I have been sprouting a little bit of barley for my goats. They love it, and I feel like it probably has some added vitamins they are missing because of it being winter and not having fresh green feeds available...I could just be waisting my time...I dunno. But, it really doesn't take all that much time. I just have 2 icecream buckets, one with holes punched in it, the other without. I soak the grains in the non-holed one, and do the rinsing in the holey bucket.


I considered sprouting barley back in Texas. I guess there are whole systems for doing it large scale for forage. I love your idea of the ice cream buckets.


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## SALTCREEK_Nubians_Linda (Nov 13, 2007)

We raise hard red winter wheat but don't feed it. It is an excellent winter forage as a plant. Cattle can be expected to gain 3 pounds a day on a good stand of winter wheat, without the need to feed them anything else. This is for growing cattle. Wheat pasture has a lot more nutrition than grown cows need. (I do mean COWS, not bulls, but it is more than a grown bovine needs to maintain it's body) It is suggested that the grown cows be fenced off of it and allowed onto it to graze every 3 or 4 days. The seed will not sprout well until the soil temperature is below 90. For winter pasture we plant it in Sept, as soon as the soil temps are down. Later than Oct and it doesn't produce enough plant to be able to support cattle but can be grown for a crop, unless you just want to let them graze it out in the Spring. You must remove animals from it before it puts up the first hollow stem in the spring (which is the part of the plant which is going to produce the seed head) But you can leave animals on it to graze. You just can't expect to have a harvest if you do. Chickens love the grain and it is good for them. I feed the goats oats.

If the wheat being given to you is seed wheat, and not just wheat left over in a granary from the previous year's crop, it will likely have been treated with a fungicide and/or a pesticide. Also, there are laws about keeping wheat since the big agribiz has it's pattented genetics hands up in everything now. There are laws against keeping part of your harvested crop as seed and stiff fines for it. We have to have documentation when we buy wheat and sign paperwork assuring the seller that we will NOT keep any portion of our harvested grain an replant it as a crop. (grumble, grumble) It's against the law to own this pattented wheat without paying them for it, basically. It is quite possible that the wheat could be seed, because we always buy a little more than we think we will need to finish planting.

I suggest planting it, letting the goats graze it and turning it under in the spring. Don't harvest and keep any of it.


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## H Diamond Farms (Jun 3, 2011)

Not all the wheats have patents though, it's mainly just the new varieties. Do you know where the wheat is coming from?
Like Linda said, if it's coming from an elevator it may very well be treated and wouldn't be suitable to feed. It makes amazing pasture though!


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## SALTCREEK_Nubians_Linda (Nov 13, 2007)

You can only buy and plant what people have for sale, and those older varieties of wheat are becoming scarce. What is at the elevators is usually the new varieties because that is what elevators have been buying and keeping on hand to sell as seed. In areas like ours, where rotate with soybeans, we have to buy new seed. Every year you keep seed it looses viability. It is common in Eastern OK to rotate crops. Even if you don't rotate, eventually you get a weed problem that becomes difficult to get cleaned out of the seed in your wheat when you have it cleaned for planting, so that it is better to not keep what you grew and buy new seed. And what you're going to buy is probably the new varieties, because it is becomming the most common seed being grown on larger farms. And, even if the wheat was held over until fall in a farmer's granary, if he was keeping it to plant as seed, the farmer could have treated it with fungicide and/or pesticide. Only if he was storing it on his farm to sell later in a better market as food, will it surely not be treated. However, if he was keeping it for seed to lant, he either has a license to do so or it isn't pattented. It is so huge a fine he would risk paying to do so otherwise.


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## H Diamond Farms (Jun 3, 2011)

We grow hard red winter wheat.  We plant mainly old varieties that we keep back enough each year to plant the following two years. We only crop half our ground each year, so half is in wheat, the other half is fallow for the year. We have the wheat we keep back cleaned each year by a cleaning company. These new varieties with the patents are ridiculous. The royalties aren't worth it IMHO.We do some new varieties on ocassion to sell as seed wheat, but they are about more hassle than they are worth. Once you pay the cleaning and the royalties to the patent holders, it's about a wash on price/bushel.
If we do keep wheat on farm to sell later, we rarely treat it, only if we get a bug problem. The fans keep it from molding.


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## SALTCREEK_Nubians_Linda (Nov 13, 2007)

If we could afford to truck it from there...... Wish we could find it here. We only grow it every 4th year nowdays. We used to raise it every year. We're the last generation of a family farm that will still (maybe) be able to keep on here. We're not buying new equipment and our old is fading fast. We've had to hire custom cutters and yeow, the weeds we now have that we never had before....and resistant weeds at that. It surely is a pain to have to buy what we can find here. We paid 14 dollars + per bushel for seed last fall. Remember when we couldn't believe it when wheat was going to sell for 5 dollars a bushel? W thought 7 dollars was expensive seed. Ha ha ha ha Usually bringing 2-something most of our lives. It's a crazy world. (that's nothing compared to soybean seed)

but back to goats. I don't feed it to the goats. Only oats to the goats.


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## Goat Town (Nov 20, 2010)

The wheat is organically grown and meant for some human to grind into flour. It comes in tightly sealed food grade five gallon buckets that will be recycled into "gang feeders" for my bottle babies this year. I opted not to plant it because it's too late in the season, too cold, and I cannot keep the goats off it.

I have been feeding it out at about 2 pounds a day added to their feed ration. I also feed it to the chickens. So far I've not seen any effects, but I'm not offering them much at once. I also feed them some whole oats as a treat.


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## SALTCREEK_Nubians_Linda (Nov 13, 2007)

good deal :biggrin


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