Much of the currently available Guinea grass is mature with thick stems.  The goats are leaving a noticeable portion of this tough grass in the feeding troughs.  They aren’t going hungry but they’re not eating as much as we’d like.  Guinea grass is free but low protein.  Be it meat, or especially dairy goats, protein in determines protein out.

Below our experiment with the chaffing machine.  It chops the 3-4’ grass into 1-2” pieces.  We thought that would help with our tough stemmed grass problem.  We also added a handful of bag feed with a spritz of genuine Jamaican molasses to the chaffed grass. Mix and serve.  A smashing success!  So much so they were crowding each other out with a few resorting to head butting.

Our current feeders for this delectable salad are discarded large diameter tires cut into quarters. (See photo.) Given the success of chaffing, we will build more lengthy troughs out of barrels to space out the chaffed grass salad feed, as well as space out the goats for more genteel dining.