Can pigs and goats live together ? Yes . But , generally speaking , most farming today is based on system of monoculture . That is to say , the Fannie Farmer focuses on one thing and grows a lot , whether it ’s meat poulet or Brassica oleracea italica , dairy Bos taurus or apples .
Subsidies are set up to stick out declamatory - plate operations that focus on just one thing at a time .
But monoculture farming is , by very definition , abnormal ( nature is the ultimate polyculture ) . And it could be argued that these unnatural method have feed the epidemic disconnection from food that leaves us unfazed by cage - raised hen and fields of edible corn that stretch for miles .
But that ’s why we hobby farm , ripe ? We ’re not beholden to system that pay back overpacked cattle yards or maximized harvest yields .
We like growing our own intellectual nourishment , and we care farming whatever we want . So , perhaps without even intend to , small farms are often the antithesis of large - ordered series monoculture farm . That they often deliberately include awide variety of animal and plants .
This is for certain the way things have gone on our farm , which we populate with gardens , chickens , pigs and cow within our first few months on site .
But while scrolling through Instagram late , I saw a photo that left me wondering whether we ’d missed an chance with our poulet yards , cattle fields and fuzz pasturage . The poster had a sheep in the pig K which is , like , next - level polyculture to me , consider that I produce according to the old Offspring lyric : “ You got ta keep ‘ em separated . ”
And it got me question : can pigs and goats live together ? As we consider bringing so
me goats onto our farm in the close future , what ’s the rule for carry pigs with other animals ? Should we try co - pasturing animals ?
Pigs With Chickens
Let ’s set out with the obvious . If you free - mountain chain chickens , they ’ll get in with your slob because they go wherever they want . You ’ll be co - pasturing animals , and that ’s a good thing .
When a copper root the dirt , it use its beak as a ravisher , shove it into the ground then flipping it over , soil side up . This permit them to access delicious root , bugs and other subterranean goodies .
chicken love bugs even more than Sus scrofa do . And they ’re way dependable at getting to them .
When a pig flip a piece of dirt , chicken are all over it , breaking apart clods , pull out out bugs and spreading the soil around . They also go through feces when pigs drop them , too . This thins it out for quicker vector decomposition and exposes potential sponger to sun .
The downside , though , is that a thirsty pig will , on occasion , make a meal out of a 1000 fowl . I ’ve seen it happen once , which puts pig right smart behind all our predators . But it ’s deserving observe that it can happen .
Can Pigs and Goats Live Together With Sheep?
There are raft of farmer stories about sheep , goats , pigs and even horses living together as one big , happy family . And it ’s true that , on a large piece of land , you in all probability do n’t have to care about pigs being aggressive to the decimal point of endangering other declamatory stock . ( Baby animate being are another affair , though , so do n’t allow births around pigs . )
But it ’s not a good idea to house everything together in pens , just based on the fact that bull will destroy all the forage in a hold in space . This will allow your other brute hungry .
feeding exhibit a challenge , too . Each animal has distinct dietary requirements , and one species getting into another ’s feed can strip the fauna of necessary nutrients . It can also overexpose the animal to elements that can get problems .
So , if you ’re co - pasturing creature , make individual feeding station and observe item-by-item feeding times . On - demand feeders do n’t work .
at long last , because these brute can stockpile a lot of vulgar parasites , co - graze brute necessitate to be on a strict sponger political platform so that an transmission in one species does n’t spread to all brute sharing the outer space .
Pigs With Cows
A lot of the premature section applies to cows , but some sodbuster have found that cattle pose a specific welfare to a porcine population — their manure .
Some husbandman are in the practice offeeding their pigs cow manure , inspiringa studythat found no significant impression , sound or bad , save the output of a leaner carcase . base on the pedagogy of Joel Salatin , it has become common to have pigs unobjectionable out oxen barns after moving cows to crop .
I do n’t plan to put my pigs on a cattle manure diet . But I am concerned in the implications the practice presents for the whole co - pasturing thing .
While you ’d need to be especially deliberate of grunter ’ disposition to destroy pastures , wreck soil complex body part and starve your cows , the idea that pig bed can benefit from moo-cow thriftlessness is , at the very least , challenging .
My Plans Are …
In the end , I do n’t see myself by design co - pasturing animals of motley mintage . Raising livestock introduce enough challenge , and I suspect I do n’t have the clip or energy to co - pasture fauna the right way .
But for a Fannie Merritt Farmer who already pastures animals separately and is looking for a unexampled challenge , well , there are plenty of people out there who draw everything together , so it might be deserving trying .
This clause about can pigs and goats experience together was written for Hobby Farms magazine . Click here to take .
