Can i keep sheep and goats together

Goats and sheep require mineral supplements along with quality hay, forage or grain in order to ensure both of them are getting the necessary nutrients.

The main difference in supplemental minerals between this two animals is copper. Goats require a mineral supplement containing copper.

But too much copper can be fatal for sheep. Sheep usually acquire necessary minerals through foraging. Because different feeding locations limit the risk of sheep ingesting too much copper, and ensure goats are getting sufficient amount of copper. For keeping your goats and sheep safe, you have to make suitable shelter and strong fence, like keeping other livestock animals.

Goats are very curious animals and usually climb and explore. But sheep are more likely to respect fencing around the farm or pasture. Goats are famous as an expert escape artists.

So you have to make a strong fence based on their nature. The fence also have to suitable enough for keeping the goats and sheep inside and all types of predators outside. You can make woven or net wire fencing. But barbed wire fences are not recommended and not suitable for raising goats and sheep together. Usually one acre of pasture is adequate for keeping a small group of goats and sheep.

There are some animals that you would never want to raise in close proximity to each other — think sheep and pigs. However, with some, like sheep and goats, the answer is a bit more ambiguous. Many people wonder if sheep and goats can be raised together because the two species have so much in common. As small ruminant animals that can be raised for meat, milk, and wool, they seem to have a lot in common.

Wondering whether you can raise sheep and goats together? In most cases, absolutely. This practice is best if you just have a small number of each species but not as easy if you raise either species commercially or in large numbers.

Raising sheep and goats together requires some special consideration. The most important consideration is that of feeding. Both goats and sheep are ruminants. This means that they are herbivores with special stomachs that have four compartments.

The rumen essentially acts as a large fermentation tank, breaking down grasses and other plants into usable nutrients. Goats and sheep will both be able to graze in the same pasture. Goats are browsers , preferring to eat grass, leaves, trees, shrubs, and brush. Sheep, too, like grass and broad-leafed plants. In fact, when the two species are used in conjunction, they can actually produce quite an effective pasture management plan.

Both sheep and goats require mineral supplements along with forage, hay, and grain. However, goats need a mineral supplement that contains copper. Sheep do, too, but in minutely small amounts — and too much copper can be fatal. While interbreeding is unlikely, it can happen, especially if you have a lot of animals.

Interbreeding between the goat and the sheep will result in a geep. A geep usually does not have a long lifespan and often dies at birth. Isolating the animals during the breeding season can eliminate the risk of interbreeding and cut down on aggression that can happen during this time. However, they get along and eat different plants, so there are very few problems between them, and they can efficiently manage the land. They will share the same housing and will eat from the same hay bail, but you will need to reinforce the fence to keep the goats inside and build a small structure only goats can climb to get to their copper supplement.

If you are using these animals for milk, you may need to do a considerable amount of milking since many animals will need milking twice per day.

If you already own sheep or goats and someone is offering a good deal on the other, you can be sure these animals will live together peacefully. We recommend purchasing animals without horns, but they rarely get aggressive. We hope you have enjoyed reading over this guide and learned something new. If we have helped you feel better about keeping both of these animals on your land, please share this guide to keeping sheep and goats together on Facebook and Twitter.

She has a strong love for all animals of all shapes and sizes and particularly loves a good interspecies friendship and wants to share her animal knowledge and other experts' knowledge with pet lovers across the globe. Goats have a different grazing behavior than sheep. They prefer coarser plants. They love to browse. Browsing means that these goats like to feed on higher growing vegetation , like leaves of tre e s and bushes, vines, and tall-growing weeds.

I live in an area where feral vines are growing abundantly. What is the cause for so many feral vines? The many vineyards in the Finger L akes region of New York suppl y plentiful bird food in the form of grapes.

The seeds that these birds depo sit wherever they perch cause these vines to grow in great numbers. My perimeter woven wire fence includes a hot wire on top, powered by a plug-in unit in the barn. When I attach my temporary electric nettings anywhere on the farm, I can electrify it by attaching a power link to the nettings and this hot wire. A few years after the woven wire fence was erected, these feral vines had grown so abandonly on the fence that they started choking out the electricity by touching the upper hot strand.

That was particularly true after a rain , as t he voltage dropped by several thousand volts when the wet vines leaned on the hot wire. Manual removal of the vines proved cumbersome and time consuming.

I had to find a different solution. I was long familiar with the grazing and browsing behavior of goats. When I tended sheep in the mountains in Germany in the s under the transhumance system, goats were use d in flocks of sheep to help eliminat e brush and weeds in open pastures.