Can Sheep be used as a companion?

romulus

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I have always had 'pet' sheep grazing with my horses. Never had any problems but my sheep are all rather opinionated Nd will not stand any nonsense I normally have an area electric fenced where the sheep can go underneath and be safe and be fed if necessary.
 

frostyfingers

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I know of one pony sharing a field with sheep (& horses) and no one could work out why one by one they were being found dead. Eventually he was caught grabbing the sheep by the back of the neck and somehow breaking it. Amazing, and rather worrying too - he was 14.2hh and sweet as pie but somewhere along the line a sheep had obviously done him a terrible injustice and he was taking revenge.

My dhorse also has sheep in his field and walks after them purposefully if they invade his space but is generally fine with them. They have an area they can get to that he can't so have learned to nip under the fence if he's giving them grief. A few weeks in though they have usually learned to keep away!
 

EffyCorsten

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One good thing about sheep apparently worms picked up from the grass die in their stomachs lowering the chances of your horse picking them up.

Although I have no idea how many sheep you would need in the field for this to be affective or if it's really true.
 

Alec Swan

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One good thing about sheep apparently worms picked up from the grass die in their stomachs lowering the chances of your horse picking them up.

........

A fallacy, I'm happy to tell you. ALL gut parasites are species specific, so the Tape Worm, for instance, which affects the dog, the human, the horse and the cow, are all individual to the species.

Alec.
 

hnmisty

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My pony was kept on her own for 7 of the 11 years I had her (neighbour had a horse who she could see from the field but otherwise no other horses around). She had sheep in the field and loved them. When they lambed she would stand over them to protect them.

Misty even shared her stable with an orphaned lamb we were given for a couple of weeks until Tiger got big enough to stay out at night on her own. She used to let the little bleater shove her off her dinner! (Seeing a confused pony looking at a lamb in her rubber bucket is quite funny!).

As to the worms, sheep do help reduce the worm burden in your field. They break up the worm lifecycle.
 
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