Animals Together

[jmwade36]

Are ther any issues with keeping pigs, goats, sheep, and cows together as far a disease or fightinh that anyone knows of? Trying to get as much info as possible before forging ahead!

Thanks,
Jon [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[JazzDad]

Hey now. It's been raining a lot lately, but not that much...
[img]/forums/images/icons/smirk.gif[/img]

[Bird]

Yep, gopher wood is going for premium prices now-a-days. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[jimbrown]

Perhaps a better answer. It depends on the individual animal. Two you gota keep the area clean. There is a guy next to my wifes riding instructor that has all in one area.
Emu
goats
donkey
horse
dogs
cats
peacock
chickins
turkey
Pig??
geese

Im'n glad he lives on the other side of he county.

[RichZ]

The only potential problem that I see are the sheep. Copper is toxic to sheep, but all of the other animals that you mention need copper in their feed. If they're strictly on pasture, it will be fine, but in the winter months when they will need feed, you may have to separate the sheep.

On our farm, we raise diary goats, fiber sheep and heritage breed pigs. Our dairy goat does are kept in one barn with their own pasture, and our ewes also have their own barn with their own pasture. Our rams also have their own shelter and pasture, but our goat bucks and our pigs share a pasture, and get along fine, even though the breed of pig we have (Gloucestshire Old Spots) weigh over 500 pounds.

[adegiulio]

Do you sell your pork locally? Flying Pigs Farm is right up the road from you in Shushan (as you probably know). I wish they would sell at our local farmers market in Rhinebeck. That pork is a completely different meat from the stuff sold in supermarkets.

[RichZ]

Mike and Jen who own Flying Pigs Farm, are very good friends of ours. Mike travels to NYC a few times/week to sell pork at the NYC greenmarkets. There's a lot of demand for Flying Pigs' pork. You can order pork from their website, which I don't have handy, but if you Google "Flying Pigs Farm" you'll find it.

We actually don't sell pork at all, our pigs are sold only as breeding stock. One of the credos of our farm, is that we raise no animals for slaughter. We sell goatmilk, fleece from our sheep and llamas, free range eggs, and live fiber sheep, as well as the Gloucestershire Old Spot breeding stock.

[adegiulio]

Yeah, I've eaten it many times, it's just so much easier to be able to buy it without the hassle of shipping it.

I like what you are doing up there. I assume you have read "Omnivores Dilemma" by Michael Pollan. If not, I highly suggest it.

[RichZ]

Actually, we're not vegatarians, we eat meat. But we can't bear to slaughter critters that we've raised. We recently bought a steer from a friends farm and had them ship him to our butcher. We never saw the steer alive, but it's all organic meat, and there's nothing like it. We get all of our pork from Flying Pigs Farm. It's the best!!

[RSTX]

Along these lines, we have a Saanen that we (well, I) milk twice daily and that is our source of milk. We also have 11 hens and 1 rooster that we keep in a coup w/run. I would like to let the chickens free range in the pasture but worry about our milk goat getting something from the chickens that would hurt her or her milk. Any thoughts on this or links to studies regarding running chickens with goats?