Keeping Goats with Chickens & Nature

I'm about 90 days into having goats and they coexist with my hens very well.  One thing I learned is my run needed to be reinforced because the goats will push and climb on the welded wire fence or squeeze under or around a post.  Namely, mine are after the chicken feed.

Other than that they don't seem overly interested or aggressive towards each other.

I moved my trash bins out of my garage to the outdoor patio and quickly learned that was  mistake.  I came home to find a hole chewed in the plastic bin and the black oil sunflower seeds rummaged through.  Likely a squirrel.

The goats were hanging out on the patio so I also had to build a cedar fence to keep them out.



Predators in North Dallas haven't been an issue even with the addition of goats especially since my fence has no gaps or spaces to speak of.  I also suspect now with the goats they'd have a run for their money.

Molting

A few weeks ago I went outside and noticed my partidge wyandotte looked like it had been attacked and her feathers ripped out.  When I didn't see any signs of wounds or blood I started to worry she might have mites.

I checked the symptoms of mites online noticing the wyandotte had none of them.  Namely, her bare skin didn't look irritated.  So further digging led to molting and pictures of molting.  Another thing I realized but didn't connect the dots on was a drop in egg production which occurs during molting.  Lastly, I realized too I'd seen more stray chicken feathers around.  So several hens were molting I'd just never seen molting to this degree before.

Something to be aware of from my reading is you should ensure molting hens are getting extra protein.  If you have goats you may have sunflower seeds around which is a good option.