Goats and chickens

[LittleDarlings]

I have 2 goats now and am planning on getting chickens soon. I had heard/read that it was okie-dokie for chickens and goats to live together. I want layers as well as meaty chickens (dual-purpose). I was thinking about having a chicken size door between the pens to allow the birds free range while keeping the goats out of the bird feed. idk, just a thought in a mess of lots of thoughts.

 

[Chicos Mama]

3 Nubian Goats, 22 Hens & 3 roosters...4 Peking ducks and 2 Giant Brown Turkeys all living together and best of friends! Seriously!

 

[maggies.family]

Awesome! I love seeing all the pics of everyone getting along so well! We are getting 3 new Nigerian's this week. We plan on connecting the chicken yard and the goat yard together (there is a good amount of space between them) so that we can let everyone roam together. I love seeing everyones pets together and living harmoniously!

 

[tcmers]

We're planning to pasture our chickens and goats together. We will have a separate coop with attached pen for the chcens so we can keep them separated if we want. Our biggest concern is goat feed contamination. (chicken poop) But, we want to free range our chickens and don't have enough available pasture to rotate them separately.

 

[elevan]

We're planning to pasture our chickens and goats together. We will have a separate coop with attached pen for the chcens so we can keep them separated if we want. Our biggest concern is goat feed contamination. (chicken poop) But, we want to free range our chickens and don't have enough available pasture to rotate them separately.

Goats like to eat high so pasture / browse won't be a problem as far as contamination. When/ if you feed goats grain you can just pick up feeders after each feeding to avoid chickens roosting on them and making them messy.

I also have lots of chicken waterers all over the place along with several waterers for the goats...but everywhere I have a goat waterer I have a chicken waterer right next to it. I've never had an issue with water contamination.

 

[Georgiamainers]

We have a screaming buck who lost his sibs to a sale. We threw a few chickens in with him and it quieted him down. My does fence runs along the chicken yard and those two are always hanging out and have found a way to poke their head through the fence and watch the chickens and ducks all day. entertainment I guess.

 

[Hobby Farm]

We don't keep our chickens and goats together for reasons of parasite control...

What is your concern?

 

[rollingmeadow]

We don't keep our chickens and goats together for reasons of parasite control...

What is your concern?

Chickens actually control parasites. Multi-species grazing has been shown to substantially reduce parasite loads of sheep, goats, and cattle. They scratch and break up manure, exposing it to soil microorganisms that destroy the parasites. They also clean pasture by eating anything that hatches from the manure before scratching it into the soil. Neither species is susceptible to the others form of parasite essentially breaking the life cycle of the parasite.

Industrialized agriculture intentionally feeds chicken poo to ruminants as a cheap nitrogen source so I doubt their waste is a danger to the goats.

"Alternatively, you can move horses or poultry onto the pasture when these other animals ingest parasite larvae from sheep and goats,the larvae are not able to mature and will die without causing harm to the new animal that ingests them. The sheep and goats can be returned to this pasture in about four to six weeks, provided that the alternate animals have disrupted the fecal pellets left by the sheep and goats (poultry) or grazed the grass down extensively (horses)." http://goldenplains.colostate.edu/agri/agri_docs/2011_goat_sheep_parasite_management.shtml

 

[Chaty]

My chickens are all over nd dont have any problems with my goats and them. They clean up the spilt feed and break up the hay compost also. No problems here you just dont want to let the goats eat Layer mash.

 

[Fluffygal]

A friend of mine told me to not let the chickens near the goat feed due to the copper in the goat feed which she said is toxic to chickens. Have any of you heard of this and experienced any bad reactions from any chickens eating the goat feed? The feed I get is Noble goat and it has the copper in it.

I keep my goats and chickens seperate as I do not want any chickens getting sick from the goat feed; but, I am reading where your chickens are in contact with the goat feed?