Goats and Fish do they help?

Hi all,

I am wondering how goats might help in aquaponics. Can any byproduct be used from a goat to help with fish culture. Or any part of fish culture aid with raising goats.

Cheers
Luke

Hey Luke, welcome. As far as the goats, I am not sure but I have heard that if you raise tilapia they can survive from grass clippings from your lawn. Apparently they are this versatile. What zone do you live in?

Zone Zone ---I live in New Zealand if that helps. I am trying to find connections between one animal to another the Fish and the Goat are hard connections.
Fish and chickens easy! Fish and Pigs a little harder but it can be done. But Goats.......silence in the mountains maybe cricket chirps.

tilapia can eat goat manure, or more appropriately, stuff that grows on goat manure. fertilize water with the manure, feed the tilapia all the algae and zooplankton and stuff. Alternatively, you could feed goat manure to earthworms, then earthworms to fish, and you get vermicompost as well.

Fish won't be giving much back to goats, though, like they can to chickens and pigs (offal).

Abe Connally wrote:
Fish won't be giving much back to goats, though, like they can to chickens and pigs (offal).

If you have an aquaponic setup, some of the greenery can go to the goats. They love variety!

Sherry

thanks for the good info i had goats but want to do the fish thing

We have a simple aquaponics setup. No talapia but lots of tadpoles and fat head minnows. We throw a little goat pen muckings into the pond to increase the nitrogen for the plants and so far have had zero problems other than a little clouding of the water. We plan to go to a full fledged talapia system in the spring.

In Southeast China they have nearly perfected the cycle of feeding one species from the waste products of another.
It is my understanding that this is why so many variants of viruses that cross species come from there.
There may be good reason for not doing this directly, and instead composting before using waste.

Hi , it seems to me that a strategically placed fish pond will be a catchall for insects like grasshoppers that are trying to escape foot traffic from any animal that passes through the grass. after the installation of my pond the grasshopper population dropped almost 0. which is a good thing since they were devastating my garden.

Luke Odonnell wrote:I am wondering how goats might help in aquaponics. Can any byproduct be used from a goat to help with fish culture. Or any part of fish culture aid with raising goats.

We haven't tried to feed goat manure directly to our fish. My guess is that our tilapia would probably not eat it but our catfish probably would.

Our goat manure does however get fed indirectly to our fish. At our place, goats, chickens, ducks, worms, catfish and tilapia, all work together to feed each other and us humans. The chickens like to get to the fresh goat manure as soon as it comes out of the goat. They peck it open to get to seeds and, we presume, parasites. In the process, the chickens scratch to turn the manure into the straw bedding. The decomposing bacteria begin their work before we muck out the pen. The muckings go to one of several compost bins or piles until the composting action cools. In the meantime, we dump kitchen scraps on top of these piles and let the chickens and ducks have at them (adding manure and scratching and turning the piles). From there the cooled, but not necessarily completed compost goes either to the garden as mulch or to the worm bin to become vermicompost. The worms go to feed the fish, ducks, and chickens. Most of vermicompost goes to the garden, some goes as tea to feed the duckweed, while a handful (with worms) goes to the bottom of the empty compost bin ready to receive more muck from the goats. The fish eat the duckweed, and in moderation and variety the following: garden and kitchen scraps, chicken and duck manure (and the algae these encourage), worms, chopped offal from the duck and chicken butchering, and raw scrambled eggs. The ducks and chickens receive the fish offal, greens from garden and the aquaponic grow beds, and duckweed. Solid fish waste is filtered off for the garden and to start up the compost as needed. Goats get leafy greens from the garden and aquaponics. Humans get veggies, fruits, nuts, herbs, eggs, milk, meat (3 kinds), and fish (2 kinds).

So yes, goats and fish do help!