How many goats per acre?
Short answer
About 6–7 goats eat what one cow does — roughly 3–6 per acre of good pasture for a grazing season, fewer on dry ground
A 150-lb goat is 0.15 of an animal unit, so six or seven goats eat what one 1,000-lb cow with calf does (NRCS; Nebraska). At 3% of body weight a goat eats about 4.5 lb of dry matter a day. On average eastern pasture — 3 tons an acre — that works out to about 2.7 goats per acre for a 200-day season grazed continuously, and about 4.7 rotationally; on 4-ton pasture, about 6. Goats also browse brush that cattle leave, which is why Nebraska notes most producers add a goat per cow without cutting their cattle numbers.
The arithmetic
- Forage per day = body weight × 3%. A 150-lb goat: 4.5 lb dry matter (Maine's table gives exactly this).
- Season = 4.5 lb × 200 grazing days = 900 lb per goat.
- Usable per acre = yield × efficiency. 3 tons (6,000 lb) × 70% = 4,200 lb rotational; × 40% = 2,400 continuous (Shelton).
- Goats per acre = usable ÷ season need. 4,200 ÷ 900 = 4.7; 2,400 ÷ 900 = 2.7. The other 165 days: about 850 lb of hay per goat from a feeder.
Is a goat 0.15 of a cow or 0.2 — and does it matter?
The animal-unit tables agree on goats. What they can't capture is what goats eat.
- NRCS (via Oregon State, Arizona)
- Mature goat 0.15 AU, 3.9 lb forage a day; kid 0.10
- University of Nebraska G2267
- 150-lb goat = 0.15 AU — six to seven goats per animal unit; most producers add one goat per cow without changing their cattle stocking rate
- University of Maine
- 150-lb goat eats 4.5 lb a day at 3% of body weight; a 75-lb goat 2.25
- University of Arkansas
- Ruminants eat 2.5–3% of body weight in dry matter; a doe in milk about half again a dry doe
The tables price a goat by weight, as if it ate grass like a small cow. It doesn't: goats browse brush, weeds and tree leaves cattle won't touch, so on mixed or brushy ground they use forage that isn't in a grass yield figure. That's the basis for Nebraska's one-goat-per-cow observation. On clean grass pasture the animal-unit math holds; on brush, it undercounts what the land can carry.
Use 0.15 AU for grass pasture. On brushy ground, start there, add slowly, and watch the browse line and the goats' condition, not a table.
What changes your number
- Browse. Goats eat brush and weeds cattle leave. Brushy acres carry more goats than their grass yield suggests — but brush regrows slowly once it's eaten down.
- Size and breed. A 75-lb Nigerian Dwarf eats about 2.25 lb a day, a 150-lb Boer 4.5 (Maine). Use your goats' weights.
- Does in milk. About half again a dry doe's intake (Arkansas). A milking herd needs more acres than the same number of wethers.
- Rotation. Rotational grazing gets about 70% of the grass to the animal versus 30–50% continuous (Shelton). For goats it also matters for worms: moving them on breaks the parasite cycle.
- Fencing. Not an acreage number, but it decides how many acres you can actually use: goat fence is the cost that limits most small-farm rotations.
A number we won't give you
How many goats per acre of pure brush. Browse yield isn't measured the way grass is, and we found no extension figure for it. Start from the grass number and adjust by eye.
Goats per acre — 150-lb goats, 200 grazing days
| Pasture | Acres per goat | Goats per acre | Hay for the other 165 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dry rangeland, 1,500 lb/acre, take half–leave half | 1.20 acres | 0.8 | 854 lb |
| Average eastern pasture, 3 tons, continuous (40%) | 0.38 acres | 2.7 | 854 lb |
| Average eastern pasture, 3 tons, rotational (70%) | 0.21 acres | 4.7 | 854 lb |
| Good pasture, 4 tons, rotational (70%) | 0.16 acres | 6.2 | 854 lb |
Intake 3% of body weight. Yields and efficiencies from Wyoming (rangeland example) and Shelton (3 and 4 tons; 70% rotational, 30–50% continuous). Grass only — browse is extra and not counted.
Run your own numbers
Ten 150-lb goats on a 200-day season — change the head count, weight, your pasture yield and how you graze.
Your animals and your grass
Intake is 3% of body weight in dry matter a day — the “safe average” in Shelton and Maine’s worksheets.
Pasture you need
2.1 acres
- Acres per head
- 0.21
- Goats per acre
- 4.7
- Forage per head per day
- 4.5 lb
- Hay for the rest of the year
- 8,539 lb
Graze goats on fewer acres than this and the difference comes out of the hay pile — or out of next year’s grass.
Pasture versus the hay pile
A 150-lb goat off pasture for 165 days needs about 850 lb of hay with feeder waste — 17 small squares, or about $70–100 at Cornell's small-square prices. The goats hay page has the per-goat table for the winter; this page is the other half of the year.
Then stop planning from averages
The calculator is the plan. In Homestead Paradise you record which paddock the animals are on and the app counts rest days for every paddock, the hay you buy for the off-season lands on the herd's feed cost per head, and the herd's weights and records sit beside it. 14-day free trial, no card.
Start your 14-day trial — no cardKeep planning
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from a land-grant university extension service, a government agriculture or energy agency, or a breed registry — never from another blog.
- Oregon State University Extension EM 9552 (Shelby Filley) — Estimating and Measuring Pasture Productivity: NRCS animal-unit equivalents
- University of Nebraska–Lincoln NebGuide G2267 — Goat Production Basics in Nebraska: a 150-lb goat is 0.15 AU; adding a goat per cow
- University of Maine Cooperative Extension — Grazier's Arithmetic: pounds per acre-inch by pasture condition, cow-days per acre
- University of Arkansas Extension — FSA-9613: small-ruminant intake by class
- Victor Shelton, NRCS, in Ohio State's Ohio BEEF Cattle Letter — Are Your Grazing Animals in Balance with Your Forages? (3% intake, 3–4 tons/acre, 70% vs 30–50% efficiency, 2–2.6 acres per cow)
- University of Wyoming Extension B-1320 (Stam, Scasta, Thacker) — Animal Unit Month Concepts: AUE table, take half–leave half, rangeland examples