# running goats and sheep together.?



## kyfarmboy (Feb 11, 2014)

Ive been raising commercial boers for about 15 years recently the popularity of the hair sheep have caught my attention after talking to several sheep producer's I believe id like to try a few head of sheep. Is there any negative effects of pasturing goats and sheep together? Or would it be best to keep them separately. Any advice for a newbie in the sheep buisness? How similar are goats and sheep? Thanks in advance.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

Goats need copper in my area and copper will kill the sheep. Hard to feed them together, other than that no problems here.


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## deadmoose (Oct 30, 2011)

Forgive me for asking... But what? What about copper? Please clarify. Thanks.


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## carcajou (Jan 28, 2011)

Copper in small quantities is toxic to Sheep.


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## Lewis Ranch (Jul 15, 2013)

deadmoose said:


> Forgive me for asking... But what? What about copper? Please clarify. Thanks.


Google "copper and sheep" many articles pop up on the subject. Here is one, http://www.sheepandgoat.com/articles/coppertox.html


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## GawasFarm (Jul 10, 2013)

I have run them both together with no problem, I thought the copper would be an issue but I just threw mineral block in the pen with them and the sheep did fine with the copper.

With that being said since you are dealing with HAIR sheep I assume you are more interested in the fibre and that is an issue. The goats will jump all over the sheep and make it dirty and not worth much. So if you are after the fibre I would keep them separate.


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## kyfarmboy (Feb 11, 2014)

GawasFarm said:


> I have run them both together with no problem, I thought the copper would be an issue but I just threw mineral block in the pen with them and the sheep did fine with the copper.
> 
> With that being said since you are dealing with HAIR sheep I assume you are more interested in the fibre and that is an issue. The goats will jump all over the sheep and make it dirty and not worth much. So if you are after the fibre I would keep them separate.


around here people call meat sheep hair sheep they will be meat sheep.


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## RockyHill (Apr 24, 2013)

we had sheep until a few years back and the 'hair' sheep were just becoming popular in this area. What is known as 'hair sheep' here are the ones that shed their coat and do not have to be sheared, no fiber usage.

Shelia


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## DSLinc1017 (Sep 27, 2009)

We raise Shetland Sheep for their fiber, for de-worming we use Safe guard lick block ( fenbendazole) It's sold for cattle. It has some trace copper in it. We place the block for a few days then remove it. I can say at least for this bread a little bit of copper is ok, just not all the time. I'm sure different breads will have different tolerances. 
I have no experience with goats, however we do keep our alpacas separate from our sheep to keep worm and parasite counts down.


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## dlskidmore (Sep 19, 2010)

The breed and the amount of copper in the soil have a lot to do with copper tolerance in the mineral mix. Safest way is to use sheep minerals, give the goats copper bolus supplements. If the sheep are having a lot of parasite problems they might do well with more copper, talk to other sheep farmers with the same soil as you or get liver biopsies to test copper levels if supplementing copper to sheep. The toxicity is a long term buildup problem, they can be symptom free for a long time until some other stressor affects the liver.

One thing not mentioned, the two flocks should be separated at breeding time.


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## DaveHowell (Apr 22, 2014)

We have a couple of Katahdins sheep and Uberhasli/Nubian goats to do the mowing on some steeper slopes. The sheep are girls, the goats are castrated males and I have noticed that they are always together either in the barn or pasture. If one get's seperated from the others, they all bawl, "maaaaaa", together.

I have read copper is more of an issue for English derived sheep, less so the American breeds, but you can easily by "all animal" feed. Our animals are working pets, are great for my granddaughter and save weed whacking some slopes I could not do with a tractor.

Free ranging chickens, in the pasture with them, pick thorugh any manure, eats bugs and maggots (flies),and keep the pastures really attractive.


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