As usual, I own one barn in which I raise some chickens to get eggs and some goats to get milk. but I am facing a big problem, which is that the goats eat chicken feed! How do I overcome this problem, especially since the chickens have become somewhat meager and their production has decreased? Do not worry and leave the issue on your behalf.
We appreciate your suffering, and therefore we conducted a comprehensive research to provide you with the most important tips to prevent goats from reaching chicken food. so let’s get to know them in the next lines.
How To Keep Goats Out Of Chicken Feed?
Here are our top 3 tips to prevent goats from eating your chicken feed:
- Fencing Around Your Chicken Feeders
- Make A Separate Housing For The Chickens
- Hang The Feeder In A High Place
Now, to the details:
Fencing Around Your Chicken Feeders
You can solve this problem by putting fencing around your chicken feeders. The fence can easily be made from goat boards with 4-inch holes. They will be very good if you have large breeds of goats.[1]
If you have small goats or heifers, 2 x 4-inch boards will suffice so that the goats cannot pass their tongues through them while they expand for the chicken to lay its whole head.
The goats may be able to get a few scraps of chicken feed, but as much as it doesn’t hurt.
Make A Separate Housing For The Chickens
With very simple procedures, you can divide the barn to find a separate place for the chickens to eat and sleep at night away from the goats. while they spend most of the day
Foraging around with each other.
Choose any location that is suitable for the number of chickens you are keeping. It does not have to be large or equipped, just make sure it is well-fenced. You can fence it with any panels or wire mesh. The important thing is that it has to be high so that the goats cannot jump off it and reach the chickens.
After preparing the place, make a routine for feeding your chickens by offering them the food in the morning before they go out to the yard. And when the evening comes, you have to let them sleep and provide them with dinner.
It is okay to put common food that chickens and goats can eat in the yard so that there is access to food throughout the day. If you find that your chickens need more food. you can bring them into their barn in the middle of the day to eat an extra meal.
Hang The Feeder In A High Place
Suspension of feeders in a high place with perches around them may also be a good solution. As chickens can jump easily and sit on perches to eat their meals in peace without goats butting with them over food.
I think this solution will be appropriate if you own a small number of chickens as it may not work well with a large number of chickens. As it may be difficult Provide adequate and comfortable perches for a large number of chickens to sit and eat.
Why Shouldn’t You Raise Goats With Chicken?
Some may ask, what is the problem with goats eating poultry feed if it is food in the end, it will benefit the goats, and the matter is simple and is solved by simply increasing the amount of feed!
However, the issue is not like this, as there are other aspects to the issue that goes beyond adding additional quantities of chicken feed. We will quickly address the most important aspects related to raising chickens with goats and the most important challenges that result from goats eating chicken feed.
Goat Disease
There is no objection to raising goats with chickens. But rather it is recommended by some research, as they provide companionship and companionship for each other and have strong bonds.
But the biggest problem that you will face when combining goats and chickens is keeping them away from each other’s food. Where goats love to share chicken food, but they must be kept away from them.
If goats have the opportunity, they will devour chicken feed, which causes a major crisis not only with regard to chickens, which lose a large part of their food ration, which negatively affects their health and production. But there is another dangerous aspect, as goats eating chicken feed causes them diarrhea and bloating, digestive upset due to an imbalance in healthy gut bacteria, and may kill them if they eat large quantities of chicken feed.
Additional Costs
No diseases were reported to chickens due to eating goat feed. This may be due largely to the different natures of chickens and goats. Chickens differ from goats in that they eat selectively and somewhat contentedly, unlike goats that like to eat anything in front of them and do not stop eating even when they are stuffed.
In addition to that, they have a sensitive digestive system that is easily harmed by eating large quantities of food! The problem with the chickens eating with the goats is that the chickens will keep leaving their droppings on the goats’ food.
The goats will leave the dirty hay and refuse to eat it. which means the goats will need new food. so getting rid of the soiled food with the chicken droppings and adding a new ration will get you additional costs.
Infection
Salmonella bacteria that live in the intestines of chickens can be transmitted to goats and cause them to become ill. Where salmonella descends in the feces of the chickens that are present throughout the barn and on which the ewe can sit and contaminate her udder with it. Then her baby comes to breastfeed and touches the contaminated udder and thus transmits the infection to him and shows symptoms of salmonella infection that appear in the form of diarrhea, fever, and vomiting. The symptoms can sometimes be so strong as to kill young goats!
These challenges can be overcome or mitigated by separating the place where the chicken feeds from the goats as much as possible. While maintaining the cleanliness of the barn as much as possible, constantly monitoring the herd, taking the necessary measures, and consulting a doctor in the event of any symptoms of disease appearing on any of the chickens or goats.
