My friend has gone on vacation for a few weeks, and needed someone to look after his chickens while he was gone.
I have plenty of space on the homestead, so I was more than happy to take them on for him.
I was sure to keep them and my goats separated—I didn’t really think anything would happen, but it always pays to be cautious.
While I was loading up their feed, which my friend had provided, on the first morning, instantly my mind wondered if my goats would enjoy this feed.
I wasn’t sure, so I thought I’d look into it.
So, can goats eat chicken feed?
Chicken feed is not safe for goats. While chickens are omnivorous, goats are obligate herbivores—they cannot stomach any kind of animal protein. Chicken feed universally contains animal matter, and can be seriously harmful, even deadly, to your goats. There is no need to take the risk.
Even if you were in a situation where you could feed your goats chicken feed or let them go hungry until you can get better food, it would be better to let them go hungry.
Get the food as soon as you can, obviously, but it’s hard to overstate the potential dangers of chicken feed.
Let’s look further into this.
Should goats eat chicken feed?
No, they absolutely should not.
A goat’s diet and a chicken’s are very, very different.
We tend to have a view of certain farm animals like these as all subsisting on the same diet on a farm, and just being given some kind of bland, protein-based pellet.
This is far from the truth.
As I said, chickens need a fair amount of animal matter in their diets.
Not a huge amount, and overall they eat a lot more plant than animal matter, but it’s there.
This is enough to keep goats away from it.
If you have goats and chickens living in the same space, you’re going to need to think about some kind of measure to prevent the goats eating chicken feed.
Putting the chicken feeders under something that your chickens can get under but the goats cannot is a good option.
In any case, goats absolutely shouldn’t eat chicken feed.
Is chicken feed good for goats?
No, it definitely is not good for them and can, in the right quantities, be fatal.
Again, while there is some overlap between a goat and a chicken’s diet, the points where they do not overlap are what causes the real danger.
It is not a complete lack of overlap that causes the issue.
If you’re wondering whether you can save money and time by letting your goats and chickens share feed, you’re out of luck.
They can both share a lot of food, like fresh fruit or veg, but when it comes to store bough, formulated chicken feed it is not good for goats at all.
In fact, it is actually in many ways toxic.
Is chicken feed toxic to goats?
Yes, it can be—although what exactly we mean by toxic should be cleared up.
Chicken feed isn’t really toxic in the same sense that, say, a poisonous plant would be.
There is no chemical compound in there that could be harmful to your goat.
However, a goat’s digestive system, while robust, is not designed to handle anything.
Even the small amounts of animal matter contained in chicken feed can, in large enough quantities, be enough to kill a goat.
This is why it is so important that you make sure not only that you don’t actively give your goat’s chicken feed, but also that you never let them anywhere near it. where ever you store the chicken feed, make sure the goats cannot get in there.
Even were your goat not killed by the chicken feed they ate, it can have serious, lasting impact on their health.
So, don’t take any risks—chicken feed is toxic to goats.
But, why exactly?
Why can’t goats eat chicken feed?
The simple fact is that there are a great many more potential digestive issues with any meat-eating digestive system than a herbivorous one.
Parasites, microbes, germs—there are a lot more of these contained within an animal that has been eaten than a plant.
Even when that animal matter is condensed down into pellet form, it still carries all the potential problems.
Chickens, and meat eaters in general, have the digestive capacity to deal with these added problems—goats do not.
This is one of the most significant, though certainly not the only, reason.
Finally, then—so your got has eaten chicken feed.
What should you do?
What to do if a goat eats chicken feed
The simple answer is to call the vet.
There’s very little you will be able to do yourself.
Comfort the goat if it appears to be in pain, and you could also try bringing something for them to eat that they will enjoy.
In any case, get the vet out as soon as you can.
Don’t panic, but as I said, there is no understating the potential dangers of eating chicken feed.
Call your vet as soon as possible.
So, though you might assume that chickens and goats would have at least somewhat similar diets, this is actually far from the case.
Chickens and goats are very different, and need a very different nutrient content in their diets.
So much so, in fact, that goats can genuinely die from eating chicken feed.
While this is rare, it is not rare enough that you should discount the possibility.
Don’t feed your goats chicken feed.