# Goats and Chickens?



## ArtisticFarmer (Sep 10, 2013)

I've heard of several people housing their chickens and goats in the same place - has anyone here done this with success? What do your chickens think about it? (I want to get 2 ND)


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## Egg_Newton (Sep 10, 2013)

My goats and chickens share the same yard but have different sleeping quarters. Meaning the goats can't get into the chicken pen and eat the chicken food. We built a special door that keeps them out. A lot of people keep their goats and chickens together without a problem.


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## treeclimber233 (Sep 10, 2013)

I keep my goats and chickens together. I  have chain link fence around part of my pasture.  I put the chicken feeder outside of the goat pen and let the chickens stick their head thru and  eat.  Or just throw the pellets on the ground scattered around very thin layer.  The goats don't bother the pellets too much on the ground.  My biggest problem is keeping the turkeys out of the goat feed.


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## themorethemerrier (Feb 13, 2014)

Egg_Newton said:


> My goats and chickens share the same yard but have different sleeping quarters. Meaning the goats can't get into the chicken pen and eat the chicken food. We built a special door that keeps them out. A lot of people keep their goats and chickens together without a problem.


Hi Egg Newton. Would you mind sharing a picture of the special door you built to keep the goats out? I have 3 twelve week old ND wethers and can't keep them out!So frustrating!! They love chicken pellets. We tried building a box in the run door that we thought only the chickens could manuveur but the goats proved us wrong. So now we have cages around the hens' feeders with small portions cut out for the chickens to stick their heads thru but one of the boys figured out how to stick out his tongue and get a pellet at a time.   Plus, the boys seem to love to go visit the girls so now I just take the chicken feed away during the hours they are together to ensure the boys are not getting feed. The girls are not a big fan of this solution. 

If anyone else has ideas, I'm all ears!!


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## lungewhipqueen (Feb 13, 2014)

My chickens and goats live together... sort of. The chickens have their own house to sleep in, mainly because I have night time predators that will eat the chooks if they're not locked up. I feed them outside of the goat pen but they spend their days scratching through all the hay the goats drop. Laying their eggs in feeders and kid huts. Dust bathing in the well worn alleyway of the goat shed. Even perching on the goats and llamas while they nap and soak sun. I swear they've been snuggling with the cud chewers this winter to keep warm too! Well... just look at my profile picture! That roo was using one of the llamas as slippers on a very cold day! It's becoming a regular scene, chickens standing around on goats and llamas or lying up against them.

 

This hen even tried laying her egg in the hut while a kid was still in there!
 

The chickens used to sleep in the same shed as the goats before we started to have raccoon problems. The only issue I had with that was the mess. Chickens poo a lot through the night. They poo on goats, on hay, on the feeders, etc. But as far as them all getting along... mine get along wonderfully.


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## babsbag (Feb 13, 2014)

I put field fencing up around my coop. The chickens can go right through the fencing, put the goats can't. Stock panel would work too. But ND goats are pretty little so if you think they could still squeeze through the fence run a row of hot wire too, right at nose height.


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## themorethemerrier (Feb 14, 2014)

Thanks all. I enjoy watching them altogether and I think they enjoy being together also. So my dilemma is to figure out a way to allow that, but not let the goats have access to the layer feed. I've even tried to think of a way to elevate the feeders off the ground to a place where only the chickens could get at them but I'm not sure what that would be. Goats are smart and persistant.

In this case, the smaller size of my little dwarfs is not an advantage!


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## Kristi (Feb 15, 2014)

I have one bantam rooster who's living with our two alpine does.  He got mean and went after the children, so he got tossed in the goat pen.  All three of them went nuts, squawking, headbutting, running around in circles.  Like they'd all lost their minds, LOL!  That was a couple days ago, now they get along pretty well.  Little rooster keeps asking me when he can rejoin the crew.  He cleans up the spilled hay and shares water.  I haven't fed him anything else, I figure if I end up putting a few more roos in there, I'll come up with a feed system.


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## taylorm17 (Feb 16, 2014)

It works well. They can get along very well. I had Nigerian Dwarfs and Barred Rocks together. None were scared of the other, but they didn't really 'socialize'. The chickens moved out of the goats way and let them through. We did have the goats eating the chicken food, but they shared the same water. At the time, we didn't have a rooster though. The goats are separated now so they have a larger pasture. Just make sure the chickens area is always clean, they have no illnesses or anything, the eggs are out of reach of the goats (they probably won't eat them, but might try to play with them), and the goats can't get to the chicken food.


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## babsbag (Feb 16, 2014)

My chickens live with my goats all day long, a few even roost on the feeders and sometimes use the goats as "ladders". The goats and sheep share the some dust holes in the summer. My chickens only eat in the coop and then they come out for the day and back in at night. The field fencing lets them eat in the coop and keeps the goats out.


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## Egg_Newton (Feb 18, 2014)

themorethemerrier said:


> Hi Egg Newton. Would you mind sharing a picture of the special door you built to keep the goats out? I have 3 twelve week old ND wethers and can't keep them out!So frustrating!! They love chicken pellets. We tried building a box in the run door that we thought only the chickens could manuveur but the goats proved us wrong. So now we have cages around the hens' feeders with small portions cut out for the chickens to stick their heads thru but one of the boys figured out how to stick out his tongue and get a pellet at a time.   Plus, the boys seem to love to go visit the girls so now I just take the chicken feed away during the hours they are together to ensure the boys are not getting feed. The girls are not a big fan of this solution.
> 
> If anyone else has ideas, I'm all ears!!


This isn't mine but I used the same design. Works great! Even keeps the ND kids out and easy to make.
http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/69640/keeping-chickens-goats-together/10
I had to show the chickens how to use it. I have a hen with a gimpy leg that it took her about a week to finally figure it out but everyone else got it quickly. We tried everything before I convinced my DH to build this. I had built one for my old coop but he thought he could come up with something better. Our door to the chicken coop is a slider window (we already had it on hand. Looks really funny having a window 6 inches off the ground lol) Even with it closed enough to barely let a chicken thru those sneaky goats would wriggle thru.


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## Womwotai (Feb 18, 2014)

That is ingenious.  Simple, yet effective.  I love it!


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## themorethemerrier (Feb 18, 2014)

We must have built ours wrong because my little boys can get thru it! Guessing we made it too big.


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## Egg_Newton (Feb 19, 2014)

It took a few adjusments after we first built it to keep everybody out.


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## GentlemanFarmer (Jun 14, 2014)

My first goats will be arriving in two weeks but, I do have horses and chickens.  The chickens are aloud to free range.  They spend a few hours of their day in with the horses scratching around.  Great fly control--no issues here.  One of the horses will occasionally chase and try to stomp a chicken but the chickens seem to manage and they choose to go in there.  Chicken feed is left in the coop so they can come and go.  Great Pyrenees keeps coyotes and other problems away.

I plan to try the same with the goats, just let the chickens decide when to spend time in there.


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