Types of Sheep and Goat Feeders: How to Choose the Right One for Your Flock
Farming is one of the most complex and under-appreciated jobs in the world. Along with the thankless task of growing food for everyone else, you’ve got to feed your flock, too. “What’s the big deal? Just throw some straw at the sheep,” the less educated would say. If only it were that simple!
It’s a massive responsibility that many outside of farming do not appreciate. Listeria. Salmonella. Enterotoxemia. These are just some of the diseases that can hurt your precious flock without proper feeding protocols and, if not identified and contained, can endanger humans, too. And key to keeping your flock’s food healthy and safe? Feeders.
Feeding is one of the highest-impact routines on any small-ruminant farm. The right feeder can cut waste, keep feed clean, reduce labor, and support better rumen health.
At Paragon Livestock Solutions LLC, we understand the importance of tending to your flock. We’ve provided a practical guide to the main types of sheep and goat feeders, with clear use cases to help you match a feeder to your space, flock size, and feeding style, and to inform your purchasing decisions.
Table of Contents
TL;DR - Types of Sheep and Goat Feeders
- Impact of Feeder Choice: The right feeder is essential for preventing feed contamination (reducing disease risks such as coccidia and Listeria) and reducing waste, thereby improving flock health and operational efficiency.
- Main Feeder Types: Key types include Hay Feeders, Creep Feeders (for young animals), Poly Feeders (rust-proof, all-purpose), Hook Over Feeders (for flexible layouts), Adjustable Grain Feeders (for mixed ages), and Floor Feeding Troughs (for ground-level access).
- Selection Criteria: Key factors to consider when choosing a feeder include the flock’s age profile, feed type (hay, grain, mixed), available space and flow, cleanliness requirements, durability, and scalability.
- Feeding Best Practices: For efficient feeding, use multiple short feeders to spread animals out, set the eating plane at the correct height (near lower chest height), and keep troughs clean to maintain animal intake and limit disease pressure.
While a summary makes for quick reading, there’s nothing like diving deeper to get a better understanding of the types of sheet and goat feeders out there. Keep reading to find out more!
Why Feeder Choice Matters
A good feeder design isn’t just about providing food to your sheep and goats. It also keeps hay and grain off the ground, so there’s less soiling and less coccidia risk, meters intake more evenly, and withstands daily wear from butting and rubbing. In addition, feeders need to be durable, simple equipment built for day-in, day-out use around panels, gates, and alleys—so you can feed efficiently without constant repairs.
Let’s take a look at some feeder types:
Hay Feeders
Best for: hay feeding with minimal waste, easy access, and long-term durability
In addition to grain and mixed feed, hay is a crucial part of the diet for both sheep and goats. Proper feeding methods can minimize waste, promote digestion, and reduce competition for food. Our hay feeders are corrosion-resistant, easy to manage, and their durable construction resists occasional chewing by curious animals.
Why choose a Hay Feeder?
- Healthier feeding: Prevents the contamination of hay by bedding, manure, or dirt.
- Less cleaning required: With hay contained in feeders, the need for frequent cleanup decreases, saving you time.
- Better for your flock: Helps maintain a cleaner, more hygienic feeding area, which is important for lambs and kids’ immune systems.
- Healthier feeding: Prevents the contamination of hay by bedding, manure, or dirt.
Creep Feeders
Best for: feeding young lambs and kids, ensuring adequate nutrition for growing animals
Designed to provide young lambs and kids with access to feed without interference from adult sheep or goats, these feeders use small access doors or openings that only young animals can pass through, allowing them to access feed while keeping larger animals out. They’re an excellent solution for ensuring that your lambs and kids are getting the nutrition they need without competing with older members of the flock.
How creep feeders help the young:
- Early weaning: By allowing young animals to access feed before they’re fully weaned, creep feeders can help ease the transition to solid food and promote faster growth.
- Independent feeding reduces competition at the feeding station, ensuring lambs and kids receive their share of the feed.
- Optimized feed intake: Helps ensure your young animals receive the appropriate amount of feed to support healthy development, reducing the risk of underfeeding or malnutrition while preventing overfeeding in older animals.
Poly Feeders
Best for: multi-purpose use (hay, grain, or mixed feed), low maintenance, wet environments
Ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWP) feeders, or poly feeders for short, are lightweight and rust-resistant, making them easy to move and ideal where moisture or frequent washing is part of the routine. With its molded construction, poly feeders easily shed water and won’t corrode like untreated steel. Paragon Livestock Solutions’ poly feeders let you provide mixed rations, or when you rotate paddocks often, quick, flexible deployment with minimal upkeep.
What farmers like about poly feeders:
- Zero-rust construction for longevity and tetanus prevention.
- High impact resistance to handle the rough-and-tumble of farm life.
- Easy to relocate for rotational grazing or pen changes—moving these lightweight poly troughs is as easy as unhooking and rehooking them at their new location.
- Cleanability: smooth interiors help reduce the buildup of fines and spoilage.
- Easy to relocate for rotational grazing or pen changes—moving these lightweight poly troughs is as easy as unhooking and rehooking them at their new location.
Hook Over Feeders
Best for: flexible layouts, temporary pens, adding capacity at gates/rails
Similar to poly troughs, hook-over feeders hang from fence panels, rails, or gates, allowing you to add a feed station exactly where you need it—during lambing, sorting, or when pen density changes. Our hook-over troughs are made from 20-gauge galvanized sheet metal and are purpose-built to hang cleanly over rails, include reinforcing straps on longer models, and stand up to daily abuse.
What farmers like about hook over feeders:
- Pop-up feeding lines in handling alleys or maternity jugs.
- Quick cleanup: lift the trough off its mount to rinse or move between groups.
- Waste control compared to floor scattering, with feed kept off the bedding.
Buy if you need: mobility, fast setup/teardown, or to spread animals out to reduce bossing at a single trough.
Adjustable Grain Feeders
Best for: mixed-age flocks, precise intake, growing lambs/kids
Height and opening control matter when feeding grain—especially with lambs and kids versus mature ewes and does. Adjustable grain feeders let you set access to match animal size and target intake. Designed and manufactured in-house, our feeders reduce waste and accommodate a range of flock sizes.
Why adjustability helps
- Right-sized access reduces pushing and spillage.
- Improved feed conversion by metering grain rather than allowing gorging.
- One feeder, many stages: raise as lambs and kids grow; adjust for weanlings.
Tip: Position adjustable troughs along panels to spread animals and limit competition; set heights so necks are neutral (not reaching up or down excessively).
Floor Feeding Troughs
Best for: lambs and kids, very low access needs, simple ground-level lines
Low-profile floor troughs are straightforward, easy for the youngest animals to reach, and handy when you need a quick feeding line in a bare pen or pasture corner. A trough from Paragon Livestock Solutions includes options designed to minimize spill and keep feed out of the bedding compared with broadcasting on the ground. They’re a practical, durable choice for routine grain or pellet feeding at ground level.
What farmers like about floor feeding troughs
- Quick to deploy: No mounting hardware is needed. Just drop it off and load with feed.
- Easy to clean and store when not in use due to their simple design.
Trough With Stand
The trough with stand is a step up from the standard floor trough, combining the strength of galvanized steel for the stand with a removable, lightweight but durable polyethylene trough for easy removal for cleaning.
Best for: Sheep and goats, simplified line feeding
What farmers like about troughs with stands:
- Raised platform allows animal to feed at a neutral position: Not too high, not too low.
- Smooth, rimless trough design ensures that every grain of feed is eaten.
- Removable polyethylene trough makes cleaning quick and easy.
Quick Selector: Match a Feeder to Your Operation
Here’s a quick guide to matching a feeder to your animal’s particular needs:
If you prioritize mobility and frequent pen changes:
Choose Hook Over Feeders to add/remove capacity at rails and gates in seconds, or Hay Baskets for the same flexibility with hay, to create improvised feeding stations.
If you want a rugged, low-maintenance all-rounder:
Pick Poly Feeders—lightweight, robust, rust-proof, and suitable for grain, or mixed rations.
If you’re dialing in grain for different sizes/ages:
Adjustable Grain Feeders and Creep Feeders can be used to adjust the height/opening for lambs, kids, yearlings, and adults, allowing you to set up a feeding regimen for your animals without having to swap feeders out.
If you need ground-level access for adult animals:
Go with Floor Feeding Troughs for simple, straightforward feed access.
If you need ground-level access—especially for lambs and kids:
The Ramstrong Creep Feeder’s adjustable access points reduce competition on feeding lines.
If you need to feed larger herds:
Hay feeders will hold larger amounts of hay that would feed larger numbers of goats and sheep than a hay basket.
Factors in Choosing the Right Feeder
In addition to the type of feeder, you’ll need to factor in other considerations that would affect how your animals are fed:
- Flock profile: Are you feeding lambs/kids, or mature animals? Adjustable grain feeders adapt to the age of your lambs and kids, while floor troughs are suitable for young stock pens.
- Feed type: Hay or grain? Poly troughs won’t rust, while trough lines excel for grain and pellets. For hay, select bale feeders based on capacity to reduce overcrowding and competition.
- Space & flow: Will you feed along panels, in alleys, or at gates? With hook-over trays, you can create instant feed lines that allow animals to queue naturally.
- Cleanliness & waste: Off-ground feeding reduces food soiling and waste compared with floor scattering (which is unsanitary to begin with). Troughs with defined lips keep fines in the pan.
- Durability & weather: Galvanized and poly constructions are durable and weather-resistant; choose based on exposure and cleaning frequency. Unlike the wood troughs of the old days, metal and poly won’t harbor bacteria within the surfaces of the walls of the troughs.
- Scalability: If group size fluctuates, modular hook-over units or multiple trough sections let you add capacity quickly and cheaply without rebuilding the line.
Pro Tips for Efficient Feeding
At Paragon Livestock Solutions, we’ve learned a thing or two about raising sheep and goats over the years, and much about that organized chaos known as feeding. Here are some tips on getting the most out of using our equipment:
- Spread animals out. Multiple short feeders that feed 8-15 lambs or kids, spread out over an area, can reduce boss aggression compared to a single long, crowded line. Adjustable troughs along panels are great for this purpose.
- Set the right height. For grain, keep the eating plane near lower chest height to limit spillage and neck strain. As your ruminants grow, you can raise the height as needed.
- Keep it clean. Smooth poly interiors and removable hook-over designs make rinsing quick—clean pans means better intake and less disease pressure. Here’s a video on how to properly clean a trough. While the video is about a horse water trough, the principles apply to any water trough.
Ready to Equip Your Barn or Pasture?
Choosing the right feeder is a high-impact decision that directly affects your flock’s health, feed quality, and farm operational efficiency.
At Paragon Livestock Solutions, we stock a range of high-quality solutions to meet your needs, informed by our expertise. By matching one of the four main types—the Poly Feeder for all-weather versatility, the Hook Over Feeder for flexible, temporary setups, the Adjustable Grain Feeder for precise intake across mixed-age animals, or the Floor Feeding Trough for easy access—to your specific needs, you can reduce waste and limit disease pressure.
Remember always to consider your flock’s profile, the type of feed you use, and your barn’s flow to ensure you set the right height and spread the animals to minimize competition. Equip your barn or pasture with the proper tools from Paragon Livestock Solutions, and you will see a return on investment through healthier animals and a lower feed bill.
Browse the complete Sheep & Goat Feeders collection from Paragon Livestock Solutions LLC and contact us today to find the perfect durable and practical solution for your small ruminant feeding routine.