# Goat Shelter/Coop question



## Texas.girl (Dec 20, 2011)

We are fencing off an area that will first be a temporary emergency paddock for our buck, but our future plans are to use the area for chickens and other purposes. There are no trees or any source of shade in the area so a goat leanto/3 sided shelter is a must. But when he is evicted we want to be able to easily convert the building into a chicken coop. We eventually plan on having a lot of layers so we can collect a lot of eggs. So the question is, how big should we build the goat leanto?

As I correct in assuming the chickens and buck should not share the space at the same time? My buck loves to butt everything in site.


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## neubunny (Nov 7, 2012)

Despite my best efforts to keep them in their own space, half my flock (the cockerels and the better flyers of the hens) has migrated to the goat shelter - even though they only get chicken food in their own space. Can't figure out what the chickens are eating unless it's goat poop (the goats make grain disappear too fast for them to get any) or hay fines - but they no longer even come back to their own space at feeding time. 

Very few diseases/parasites that cross bird to mammals -- so I'm not terribly worried - though chicken poop makes it yuckier to clean out.

If it were mine, I'd build to your long-term plan for a large chicken coop. I've seen lots of nice coop designs that would work for goats as temporary. Just plan to add the roosts later.


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

How many layers are you planning to have?


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## Texas.girl (Dec 20, 2011)

Long term plans is to have enough to feed lots of people.


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

Then I would build it as large as you can afford. We used a 10x20 shed for our chickens and when we had 30 chickens, that seemed to be sufficient when there was bad weather and they had to stay in the coop. Of course we have cold winters and they will spend a couple months strictly in the coop.


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