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Easy DIY Goat Mineral Feeder

A goat mineral feeder that is easy to make and won’t waste any expensive minerals. ✓ Inexpensive! ✓ Easy to assemble! ✓ Durable! ✓ Easy to check and fill. This is one more great post on our raising goats resource page.

Besides water and hay, goat mineral is the next most important aspect of your goat management program. If you don’t believe me or would like more information, please follow this link, Goat Mineral, to learn more. Baking soda is also very important! 

Seriously. This is not something to shirk on. If you don’t have goat mineral and baking soda out for your goats right now, stop reading and go get some.

I’ll wait…

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A goat mineral feeder for raising healthy goats. It's easy to make and won't waste expensive minerals. ✓Inexpensive! ✓Easy to make ✓Easy to check and fill.

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Follow this link to read the  Complete Guide to Goat Mineral 

You can find a lot of articles here on A Life of Heritage that will teach you about goat care and be sure to check out The Goat Health, and Information Bundle–it’s full of to-do lists, checklists, record keeping sheets, and resource pages that will get your new (or old) goat herd off to a terrific start!

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Pinterest, oh Pinterest! You give me so many good ideas! And that is where I found this idea of making goat mineral feeders using PVC pipe. 

I started out providing mineral and baking soda, free choice, in the dispensers below but I realized after a couple of months that this was not going to work well. So I modified the setup a bit.

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Homemade Goat Mineral Feeder (That I Changed–more pictures below)

Homemade Goat Mineral feeders made out of pvc pipe

There were several factors that helped me decide to change the goat mineral feeders shown in the picture above:

They were too tall. Goats like fresh baking soda and mineral and if something did go awry, the contents were ruined and therefore not eaten. It didn’t make sense to keep filling and filling to the top because there were three feet of possibility for things to go wrong and get clogged up.

There was also no protection from the weather. Although this is located on the east side of the barn and therefore usually out of the wind, it still allowed for moisture to accumulate into the openings and ruin the expensive mineral.

The deep opening and bottom. These fittings were too deep and allowed a bunch of minerals to go to the bottom and to be ruined and wasted. That doesn’t make sense, right?

What was the solution that worked? (Keep reading!)

The solution was to fill the bottom with self-leveling cement. This stuff is fun! It’s so easy to make and I love to have a bag around at all times…because you just never know when you might need it!

 

 

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As shown in the pictures below, I mixed water with the cement inside the bottom of the PVC pipe with a stick. 😉 I’m preeetty high-tech!

Filling the bottom of the mineral feeders with cement

You can find the instructions on the bag of cement. I’ll be honest, I just mix until it’s just right. It’s pretty easy to handle!

Filling the bottom with cement and letting it dry.

After mixing, the mineral feeders sat for 24 hours to dry, and then the mineral and baking soda were added!

These mineral feeders will keep the minerals from falling to the bottom and being ruined

The photo below shows that the green portions of the PVC pipes were also cut down considerably. It was cut to about one foot and seems to be the perfect amount to be filled every couple of weeks to a month, depending on how many goats are using it.

The level of the cement is just right as well. The mineral is at the perfect level for none of it to get lost in the back or bottom of the feeder.

These shorter mineral feeders keep the minerals more fresh and are easy to fill

They have no difficulties getting their noses into the openings and getting to the contents.

The goats can reach the minerals just fine

 

Goat-Mineral-Feeder

After cutting down the size of the goat mineral feeders, it was also important to cover them as well. And what better way than a stand for them to jump on? 🙂

Putting a ledge over the minerals keeps the weather off of them and gives the goats a place to lay down

Kids of all shapes and sizes enjoy the stand!

It's fun for kids to climb too!

And it’s the perfect setup for a first kiss. 🙂

And kids can get goat kisses more easily as well

How the mineral and baking soda are displayed for goat consumption doesn’t matter. But this PVC pipe feeder for goats has been a great choice for our setup.

✓ It’s inexpensive!

✓ Easy to assemble!

✓ Durable!

✓ Keeps loose minerals off the ground and away from dirty feet.

✓ Easy to check and fill.

And that my dear friends, makes it a very good choice for feeding loose minerals to your goats.

 Free Resource Page for Homesteaders and goat lovers like yourself! Cha-ching! You can have immediate access to 50+ FREE resources. Check ’em out!

Mineral feeder for goats under a free standing pallet perch for goats to lay on

 

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Debbie

Tuesday 31st of October 2023

How many mineral feeders do you recommend for 12 goats?

Delci Plouffe

Wednesday 29th of November 2023

Goats won't constantly have their heads in the feeds, so most likely they'll just need one. But keep it full! They'll take turns at it.

Denise R.

Wednesday 19th of January 2022

Are there printed/downloadable instructions/plans for the mineral feeders?

Delci Plouffe

Friday 18th of March 2022

I don't have anything other then the pictures in this article.

darren

Sunday 22nd of August 2021

This is older but maybe you're still watching comments.

How far did you fill the PVC with cement? I *think* I can tell but shadows make it a little hard on the completed feeder. Is it about a half inch from the "ridge" on the slant arm measured on the bottom of the arm?

Leah

Tuesday 12th of May 2020

Do you have instructions on how to build the mineral feeders?

Heather

Wednesday 24th of April 2019

What are the measurements for the PVC pipe that you used?

Delci Plouffe

Thursday 25th of April 2019

We used a 4-inch pipe :)