Goat ate chicken food!! Help!

[Sundari]

I'm so happy to have a resource to learn about this! Here's my situation... I live in the city (Denver), and although I would love to have separate pens for my goats and chickens, I don't. I have one 19'x38' "barnyard" for the 7 hens and 2 Nigi goats.

The chickens have a small coop and enclosed run, which is where I keep their food. They have free access to their food in the morning and evening, and also midday when I let them into their run for lunch. Other than that they're running free in the barnyard (which they much prefer to being "cooped" up in the run).

I've been scattering a small amount of scratch throughout the barnyard for them in the morning, so they have something to hunt for during the day (one of my goat breeders told me that scratch is ok for goats to have in small quantities - but by reading these posts, maybe not). Because the scratch is so spread out, the goats are just eating a little - one grain at a time.

However, I know that the scratch doesn't have all of the nutrients the hens need, and I really would prefer them to nibble on their food throughout the day - even if it's just a little. However, I've held off from scattering their food in the barnyard, because my other goat breeder is convinced that chicken food is toxic for goats.

My hens are eating Layena, which (according to the website, at least) doesn't have any animal protein and isn't medicated. I understand that the goat's main form of nutrition needs to be their hay and a little bit of Goat Chow, but would nibbling a few bits of Layena each day be a problem? And worth the tradeoff, since the chickens would have better access to their food throughout the day?

 

[helmstead]

If it were me, I would devise a way for the chickens to access their coop/feed during the day. Right before we finally moved the chickens to their own pen here, we had been having issues with our smallest kids figuring out the "chicken tunnel" and going in the chicken's stall to snack and then crawl into nesting boxes to sleep (also breaking eggs!). I finally took a ladder, attached it to the outside of the barn, cut a hole in the barn wall about 5' up, then made a little catwalk for the chickens to the top of the roost from where they could either lay or go eat. This worked fairly well until I was able to move the chickens to their own pen. Some hens were really slow at figuring it out, but after a few times of 'walking them through it' they had it down pat.

I can't remember who said it, but I like it...treat each species specific feed as if it were poison to other species and you'll be on the right track (altho I do agree, a tiny amount of scratch isn't going to be horrible esp if it's a high quality scratch with less cracked corn in it).

 

[Sundari]

Thanks, that's good advice. This morning I took a couple of old chick feeders and put them on top of the (4 foot tall) coop. I secured the feeders with twine so the hens can't knock them off and inadvertently feed the goats. So now the chickens can fly to the top of the coop anytime they'd like to get a snack, but the goats can't reach it. Hopefully it will work!

 

[crazygoatlady]

I lost my first dairy 2 bucks to chicken feed--well it was barrels of screenings mixed with bagged chicken feed. Too much much--too hot for their systems. Saved the doe, was lucky that those were the only 3 that got into it. Everything should be introduced gradually and too much can give a tummy ache like humans with lots of complications--sometimes it is the pain that kills them or they shut down. Way tooo much gas and bloat can kill them. If I knew then what I know now, you can insert a syringe in and let the gas out, but one needs to know how to do it. Have a better chance of saving them.