# goats eating chicken food



## drauch (Sep 7, 2010)

Hello all! 

I am new to the forum and raising goats!! My goats share space with chickens during the day and are constantly finding ways to get into the chicken food!! Pretty smart cookies!!! Is there anything in chicken food that can harm goats? I have taken to picking up the chicken food and going out and giving the chickens food a few times a day. Some days it can be hard to do. Any suggestions would truely be appreciated. Any other helpful hints would be welcome too!! Want to make sure I'm doing it right!! Thanks--Donna


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

Please amend your public profile information to reflect your location and breeds of goats.
Thank you. This helps us answer questions more accurately.

In my opinion you are asking for trouble if you raise foul fowl with dairy stock.
Birds are filthy and the commercially prepared feeds are not formulated for ruminants and have additives that I do not want my milk stock to eat. 
It is very inadvisable to allow random consumption of any type of feed. You are risking rumen disruption which is difficult to repair.
This is of course a personal choice but our laying flock live no where near our dairy stock.
My suggestion would be to provide separate quarters for your fowl.
I cannot imagine battling chicken manure while trying to produce wholesome milk.
Welcome to the forum.
Lee


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## prairie nights (Jan 16, 2009)

Donna, 

welcome to the forum  I agree with Lee, if there is a way to separate the chickens and goats (a good chicken eating Pyrenese may do the trick too until you get the fencing up), it will save you headaches down the road. The vision of all the farm animals living in harmony together is just too idyllic to work in real life, lots of bacterial problems that can result in runs, infection, etc for the goats , with the chickens sharing the space and while goats are pigs and will eat lots of concentrated fees such as chicken food, it is not good for them or , like Lee said, it devalues the quality of your milk. 

Good luck with getting it sorted out, I think you will be much happier in the long run if you do 

Jana


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## dragonlair (Mar 24, 2009)

Ditto what the others said. The medicated stuff can make the goats sick. Over eating any feed can kill the goats. Chicken feed has a lot of corn in it, which isn't ideal for goats either.

I only have a 1 acre farm, but I make sure the chickens stay far away from the horses stalls and goats stalls and pen. I keep my chickens in chain link dog kennels so I know they cannot escape.


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## Squires (Jul 23, 2010)

:hi Hi There! 
It is hard to start something new - -and not know all the guidelines and rules. It is always good to ask questions, and I hope that no one minds if I give some real answers as to WHY people separate their poultry from their dairy.

I'm retired, don't show or keep a commercial dairy, so I enjoy sitting back and watching the "three ring circus" of farm animals sometimes, too. In addition, chickens eat flies and their larvae, and can be a beneficial addition to a barnyard (but not a milk room). There are times when it is OK to mix your critters, and times when it is better to separate them. If the goats get used to stealing from the chickens, and the chickens steal from the goats, they begin to follow each other around; you may find chickens coming into your milking parlor or wherever you milk the goats. That's not so great an idea.

:update Commercial dairies can lose their license if the inspector drops by and sees poultry or their droppings in the dairy. That's why people don't want poultry near their commercial dairies. I have a neighbor who remembers that when he was just a hired hand on his dairy farm (before he purchased it and dedicated his life to it) that the farm used to have laying hens in the building next to the main barn. There was a separate dairy parlor a couple hundred feet from the barn in the other direction, and poultry were kept out of that. When they modernized and put the new cow dairy stalls in the lower part of the main barn, they tore down the chicken house. They did not want to risk a hen walking into the barn at any time. Different management changed their focus. The cows are milked in their stalls in the barn instead of walking through a separate milking parlor. That's all. 

:milk The reason for separating the milking area, stand and anything related to handling milk is that chickens do perch and poop on things. IF the poultry should pick up any disease (say, from a passing wild bird), they may spread it to the goats and the milk. Also it is just plain icky to have bird poop around the milk stand - -where you want things super clean and without odor.

Ideally you should have separate houses for chickens and for goats, so you can separate them at least some of the time. For instance, if one of them gets sick--- you want to make sure that if the chickens are sick they don't make the goats sick and vice versa. And if the chickens should pick up some disease which may affect people, that it does not accidentally get into your milk through dust motes with virus particles or whatever. SO, you definitely want the chickens to keep away from your milk stand and learn that they are not part of the goat herd.

I keep intending to ask one of my extension specialists at Cornell University about the real difference between commercial mixes of goat, chicken and pig foods. I have to be careful because I have dairy sheep -- and sheep are super-sensitive to excess copper, while goats, chickens and pigs require higher levels of copper to be healthy and grow properly. There probably are differences in the proportions of minerals, vitamins protein, fat, carbs, etc.in the different feeds. A little isn't going to kill them, but is not desirable.

IF you are feeding whole grains, and less-processed feeds, without additives, it may not be such a big deal. If your goats are stealing a taste of scratch feed - -oats, corn, wheat or whatever -- there's nothing that is going to harm them. However . .. 

:deadhorse Ever since the explosion of Mad Cow Disease in Europe (and some places throughout the world, including Texas) it has become illegal to feed some animal by-products -- specifically ruminant by-products -- to ruminants. So if there is processed meat-by-product in the chicken food which came from a cow, goat or sheep, it is not supposed to be fed to your goats. This is to ensure that some contagious disease does not suddenly appear again in the way that Mad Cow Disease did.

So, there are reasons for these rules -- whether laws or just working guidelines for raising your own dairy goats. 

I'm more concerned about chickens running to see what the goats are eating -- because I want them staying out of the milk area when I am milking and the goats are eating in the stanchion.

When you are able, you need to make sure you can lock up the chickens separate from the goats. So long as you are just milking for your self and your family, it is a risk you might choose to take, but really, it is easier and more healthful and satisfying when you know that your milk is pure and clean and will be odor-free and taste wonderful for a while after you milk the goat. 

It may be better if you lock up the goats when you are feeding the chickens, and vise versa. Then you know what everybody is eating -- so you know quantities, qualities, etc. should a problem arise and you need to figure out what is wrong.

Hope that knowing WHY is helpful.

Chris


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

I got around this problem with my free range chickens in that I mix my own feed for the goats (whole oats, cracked corn, rolled barley, beet pulp, and boss) so just thru that out for the chickens and it all worked out great. I have never once bought chicken feed. (except for the tiny chick feed, but then they weren't out with the goats)


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## drauch (Sep 7, 2010)

Thank you all for the very informative info. It was very interesting!! I'm a ways off from milking since I only have a doeling and two bucklings at this time. It will definately give me some time to try and figure out how to separate their shared space. They both have their own living quarters, but the goats have weaseled through everything we have tried!! Even a hole that was only 4" X 5"!!! They must have rubber bones!!! Again thanks! Donna

Sondra--I would be very interested in your formula for your own goat food. It would be nice to know exactly what there eating.


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## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

Donna, there is a funny series of pictures on Fiasco farms website of a goat getting through a very tiny opening to get to chicken feed. So yours are not the only ones who do it. They can be real stinkers!
Somewhere on this forum Sondra has given her recipe for goat grain. Try using the search on the top left of the home page to find it. It is good mix.


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## Sunny Daze (Jan 14, 2008)

I solved this problem like Sondra did, I began mixing my goat feed with whole grains and the chickens get essentially the same mixture so no one gets sick if they steal a little of the other's feed.


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