Are sheep good or bad to graze with Horses?

tracyward

tracyward

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Aug 24, 2003
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Weve just moved to a new yard, have it all to ourselves :D. Yesterday, my friend went to bring our horses in only to find 20+ sheep grazing with them. Again today, they back in with our horses :eek:

Im not sure if sheep are good or bad for the land and our horses. :eek:

All advice is welcome.

Thank you.
 
yeah hey are good as they also flatted the ground that horses poach up. and eat the grass that horses leave and as the other poster they ingest the parasites that cause worms in horses
 
I liked having the sheep on with mine over winter.

They do have benefits re worms as Forestgump says but they also will mop up the grass that the horses leave as long as there aren't any tastier bits anywhere else!

On the downside. They wrecked the bottom strand of my fencing. I had to try and get out of the habit of picking up every poo I saw as poo picking after hundreds of sheep wasn't fun! The ponies weren't that keen on them and the sheep avoided being in any paddocks that had horses in them. I also spent a lot of time worrying about the sheep and their knows and scapes despite the fact they weren't mine! :rolleyes:

Lastly you need to make sure you have enough grazing for all and get your timing right for putting them on and taking them off again.
 
Sheep and cattle are good to graze with horses, so long as you don't have a sheep killer.
 
Great for rotational grazing, but they are little houdini's and can escape from anywhere - they can also get a taste for chewing tails and if your horses don't mind them being close you can end up with a rather ragged looking tail on your horse !!!
 
great for worm/parasite control and keeping the ground flat......but they do also graze down the grass!

Yes, they are good at escaping, but they are also very inteligent, and will respect boundries that they think are electric - and ewes will teach their lambs to leave the fence alone too.....so electric tape can be replaced with string, and for generations, they will respect it. Sheep that are used to being kept in a specific area, will usually stay in that area.

If you have hand reared sheep, then that is better still- they wont run, and they will follow you around like puppies. They are good company for horses, but they need to be sheared and maggots/flies do need to be controlled.

If my new yard owner will let me have a sheep or two, in the future, Id love to have them.....appparently they arent good to handle during pregnancy (infection/disease etc), but as soon as my baby is born, I might try to have lambs again! I used to go riding with my old lambs in tow! Tourists loved it!
 
I forgot to mention that these sheep aren't ours. We don't know who owns them at the moment. They have knocked down part of our wall and are managing to get round the electric fencing :confused:.

My mare tried to kill a sheep many years ago, when she jumped over one and kicked it. Sheep did survive.

How can we stop them from getting in?

Thank you for all your help.
 
I didn't interfere with where the sheep went. They had no respect for fencing and the yard didn't have netting or anything like that.

As it was the ponies must have been chasing them out because they never went in with them, they just completely grazed down to the roots my short summer side.

The tufty winter side wasn't as tasty so they didn't bother!
 
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