As natural browsers and foragers, goats normally enjoy a diverse diet of plant materials.
And offering your herd goat safe fruits can greatly boost their health and keep them curious and happy; this is why we feed our goats pineapples.
Yes, goats can eat ripe pineapple. Pineapple is a sweet treat that offers unique benefits for your herd. But because of its tough flesh and prickly leaves, certain precautions must be taken before allowing your goats to munch on pineapple.
Pineapple: The Golden Tropical Fruit
The pineapple is the large, golden fruit of the pineapple plant (Ananas comosus). It is a tropical plant that is believed to have originated from the rich Brazilian rainforests.
Its growth is particularly dangerous, as its thick and pointed basal leaves sprout from a central point and can grow to be more than two feet long!
If you grow pineapple we suggest keeping your trip of goats away from it as they can puncture themselves on the sharp leaf points.
The fruit however is a large, yellow or white fleshed composite fruit that is slow growing, a pineapple fruit may take 2 years to fully ripen!
As we all know, pineapple is characterized by its tough outer skin with slight prickles and its sharp, pointed crown of leaves .
Pineapple For Goats: Nutritional Information
This tropical fruit is best offered to your herd when raw. Ripened, raw pineapple is 85% water and serves as a juicy treat for your goats.
Pineapple is also naturally acidic and sweet, containing 685 mg of citric acid per 100g serving as well as malic acid and five different kinds of natural sugars.
Other nutrients in pineapple include:
- Potassium
- Vitamin C
- Calcium
- Magnesium
- Thiamin
Note that vitamin C supports healthy immune systems and that calcium and thiamin are essential micronutrients for energy metabolism and growth.
However, due to the goat’s naturally diverse plant diet, goats are not usually lacking in these particular nutrients and/or can synthesize them within their rumen.
As such, pineapple is really just a yummy treat to offer to your herd and shouldn’t be incorporated into their diets as a primary nutritional source.
Is Pineapple Good For Goats
As a treat food, pineapple is good for goats.
But never allow pineapple to make up ¼th or more of what your goats eat in a day!
Too much pineapple can be dangerous to your goats, causing serious stomach bacterial flare ups, bloating, and indigestion due to its high acid and sugar content!
Feeding Your Goats Pineapple: Can Goats Eat A Whole Pineapple
One goat should NEVER eat a whole pineapple in one day, this would result in serious belly ache and may require a trip to the vet!
Instead, we practice offering about 1-2 cups of cut pineapple to our goats once a week (when we have the fruit on hand) and have never experienced our herd having upset bellies or the development of bad eating habits.
Parts Of The Pineapple: Can Goats Have Pineapple Skin
Yes, pineapple skin is okay for your goats to eat. It is high in fibers and can help balance out the concentrated sweet/acidic characteristic of the inner flesh.
But the tough outer layer of pineapple is slightly spiky and must be cut up before offering it to your goats to eliminate pain or choking hazard.
Finally, pineapple skin should always be washed well before feeding it to your herd, as dirt and residual pesticides or bugs can hide in the crevices and folds!
Can Goats Eat Pineapple Core
When cutting up pineapple for my kids’ school lunches, I avoid chopping up and giving them the hard core of the golden pineapple fruit; we humans don’t eat the pineapple core because it is much too fibrous for us to chew and digest easily.
But goats can eat pineapple cores! So we always offer this part to our herd because the high fiber is great for their digestive system and it is less sugary than the soft flesh of the fruit.
Can Goats Eat Pineapple Tops
The top of the pineapple fruit is crowned with thick, pointy leaves.
This green crown is like a smaller version of what the pineapple plant itself looks like and is tough and fibrous.
Without doubt, your trip of goats can munch on these green pineapple tops.
However, because the tips and sides of pineapple tops are a little rough and spiky, we always chop them up before giving them to our herd to eliminate their risk of hurting their soft inner mouth.
How To Offer Your Goats Pineapple
As hinted at above, the process we follow when offering our goats pineapple is as follows:
- Wash the entire ripened fruit well to remove residual dirt, pesticides and bugs from the skin.
- Twist the spikey crown off and chop it up.
- Cut the fruit (core and all) into bite size pieces, leaving the clean skin on or peeling it off before hand.
- Combine the chopped green crown and bitesize sweet fruit and skin together and offer it to your entire herd, ensuring it is well within 1-2 cups of fruit per goat.
Remember, you can peel, chop, and divide the fruit up as you like!For example, we sometimes offer our herd the tough greens first and follow that up with the sweet fruit treat.
Can Goats Eat Unripe Pineapple
Do NOT feed your herd unripe pineapple!
Unripe pineapple is well known for being inedible and potentially poisonous. This is due to the high number of digestive enzymes within unripe pineapple called bromelains.
If eaten by animals, including humans and goats, these enzymes can cause stomach upset, diarrhea, and more severe health issues if an allergic reaction occurs.
Note that ripe pineapple also contains bromelains but in very small amounts, negating any health risks.
Frequently Asked Questions Related To Can Goats Have Pineapple
Can Baby Goats Eat Pineapple?
Yes, any goat that is either fully weaned or mostly weaned can eat all parts of the ripe pineapple fruit in moderation without issues.
We define mostly weaned as receiving more than two thirds of its daily nutrition from foodstuffs other than mother’s milk.
Is Pineapple Toxic To Pets?
Unripened pineapple can cause serious issues for pets and homestead animals, including goats. It is potentially toxic and should never be eaten.
Can Goats Eat Canned Pineapple?
The canning process naturally alters the nutritional benefits of pineapple due to heat. In addition, canned pineapple always contains more sugars than its raw, fresh counterpart.
As such, canned pineapple doesn’t offer the same benefits as raw pineapple and simply has more sugars; we do not recommend feeding your goats canned pineapple.
Final Thoughts on Pineapple For Goats
Goats are incredible homestead or pet animals and tending to them is often exciting and fun for the entire family.
One of the best ways to enrich the lives of your trip is by offering them yummy and nutritional goat safe fruits, such as ripened and raw pineapple or bananas.
The more you incorporate such nutritious dietary supplements, the happier and healthier your goats will be!