Can Goats Eat Popcorn? What You Need To Know!

Raising goats, for a lot of people, is an especially fun hobby that can be undertaken by just about anybody. A common belief is that goats will eat pretty much anything, and anything includes corn right? However, before you go off and switch your goats from goat feed to corn, let’s make sure corn is a safe food for them to consume daily.

Goats can indeed be fed popcorn and other types of corn, but it must be done with great care. Corn contains a fairly high concentration of calcium and too much of it can cause severe health problems. Corn is cheaper to use than feed, but it must make up less than fifty percent of a goat’s diet.

If you are a goat owner and this is news to you, then you have assuredly come to the right place. Read on to learn exactly how much corn and which kinds of corn you can feed your goats as well as the pros and cons of doing so. Hopefully, this will help you to determine what is best for you and your goats!

Can Goats Eat Popcorn? Popped or Unpopped?

As most people know (or assume) a lot of goats will eat whatever is put in front of them and corn of any kind is no exception to this rule. Popcorn can be fed to goats whether it has been popped or if it’s still just the kernels. However, popped is recommended over kernels because too much munching on those kernels won’t do anything good for the goats’ teeth.

You should keep the feeding of popped popcorn to a minimum. As mentioned before, the high concentration of calcium in popcorn can prove to be rather unhealthy for goats and might even cause some severe issues if they become overfed with it. You will just have to closely monitor the amount of popcorn your goats ingest and it should be totally fine.

If you want to feed them unpopped kernels that’s fine too, but as mentioned before, it should be kept to a minimum since too much chomping on popcorn kernels will quickly grind a goat’s teeth down. Just because goats can eat just about anything does not in any way mean they should eat anything. Keep the popcorn consumption low and your goats will live to be very happy and healthy.

What Are the Pros and Cons Of Goats Eating Popcorn?

As we can see here, there are quite a few ups and downs of feeding popcorn to your goats. You may want to be aware of a few of the pros and cons of doing so before you decide to make popcorn a permanent component of your goats’ diet. Here are some important pros and cons to know!

Pros

Popcorn creates heat when consumed. While this may not be great during the summertime, what better way than to feed your goats corn during the winter to keep their body temperature at the right number? Giving your goats a moderate amount of popcorn during cold months will keep them comfortable and provide an extra layer of protection against the winter.

Corn is also an incredibly cheap way to feed your goats, even more so than goat feed. Again, it should not make up more than fifty percent of a goat’s diet, but popcorn can be mixed in with the feed to make the feed last quite a bit longer than it would otherwise. This is a great way to keep your goats fed and to save money at the same time.

Goats love their corn! You won’t need to worry about whether they will eat it or not because most goats will gobble down popcorn like it’s nothing. You literally can’t go wrong; goats love corn and corn is cheap to buy so you’ll be saving money while feeding your goats food that they enjoy!

Cons

Unfortunately, there are some bad things about feeding your goats popcorn as well. First of all, the aforementioned heat. While this can be a great thing for goats during the winter months, it can be dangerous and uncomfortable for them during the summer. If your goats consume too much popcorn, they will become hot and sick, a problem you definitely don’t want on your hands.

Additionally, corn of any kind has a lot of calcium. Too much of it could potentially cause urinary calculi in bucks, a disease that will make urination and breeding extremely difficult if not impossible. And yes, it has been proven to kill animals very quickly, so you will want to avoid it at all costs.

How Should I Feed Goats Popcorn?

There is not really a special way to feed popcorn to your goats. The best way you can mix it in is to combine a little bit of popcorn with the goat feed to “water it down” in a way and make the goat feed go farther. As mentioned before, this is a great way to save money. Mix some of the popcorn kernels in, but make sure the ratio of feed to kernels is a tad higher.

As we have already discussed, a goat’s feed should have less than fifty percent of popcorn kernels in it so they don’t eat too much and get sick from it. Be careful about measuring out the amounts and you’ll be golden and ready to go. You might even want to talk to a vet and discuss whether it’s okay for your goats to eat unpopped popcorn because, as mentioned above, too much of it can wreak havoc on a goat’s teeth.

If you would prefer to feed your goats popped popcorn, the best way for you to do that is as an occasional snack or special treat for your goats. If you have some leftover from a night at the movies, you can take it out and let your goats snack on it until they are satisfied (it can be fed to chickens as well!). Closely monitor how much of it they’re eating and you shouldn’t have any problems.