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Monty Roberts is a renowned horse trainer known as the man who listens to horses and the original horse whisperer. Monty's horse training instructions are accepted worldwide.
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Monty’s principles really amount to common sense and immense patience. He believes that children and horses have the same behavioral patterns. They are both naturally “flight” animals. "If you frighten them and resort to confrontation, you’ll lose their trust." ~ Monty
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Horse Care and Comfort

Horses and sheep

By:

Lucie (france)

Date:

2016-Apr-05 at 11:54AM

Hey everyone, as some of you might have read I had found a field mate for my horse. Unfortenately, while the mares absolutely loved each other, the other owner and I were not compatible at all, let's just leave it at that ^^
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With this really bad experience I don't think I'll try again and that leaves my girl alone. And here's why i'm posting this. I've heard about people who put horses with sheep for company. I breed miniature sheep so I thought I could keep the babies this year and put them with Dayka.
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Have any of you ever tried horse/sheep cohabitation ? Do you think that'd be a good alternative (until I can afford to keep a second horse)? How would you go about getting them used to staying with one another?
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Sorry if my questions aren't very specific I'm more brainstorming than anything, I have 3 months until the babies are weaned so that leaves me time to think about it and get them used to each other if I go with this.

luccyannejones 2016-Apr-05 at 01:20PM

I have tried horse and sheep cohabitation it really helped my mare she loves the sheep! having the company in the field helped her loads.

Widgymaphlip 2016-Apr-05 at 03:53PM

my boy has been out with tow others horses and a herd of sheep and they seemed to get along ok. They didn't become close friends, probably due to there being other horses there so they usually kept to themselves. When the ponies had 'zoomy' moments they thought it was great fun to gallop through the herd of sheep and see them ping out the way.... they had fun, the sheep...they didn't hold grudges thankfully! Give it a go! Hope it works out! x

Lucie (france) 2016-Apr-06 at 07:40AM

Thank you both for your replies.
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Did you have to install double fences in your fields ? Sheep seems to be 'immune' to electric fences and I think sheep fences could be dangerous for a horse ...

vicci - UK (North Wales) 2016-Apr-09 at 07:39PM

Hi Lucie; sheep and horses are a great mix. I have sheep over the winter to chomp my grass right down so it's makes better hay. It also stops my ponies scoffing it all and it keeps the worm count down as horse worm larvae in the grass is harmless to sheep. It's a win win :-)
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You are right about the electric fence; sheep will pay no attention to it! I have post and rail and electric so that the electric fnece keeps the ponies in but the sheep can go in and out of the post and rail
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I would start them off in pens next to each other so they get used to the sight and smell of each other; don't worry about different sheep coming in, once they know what a sheep is they will tolerate them, I have different sheep each year and my boys are fine. The sheep will stay out of their way if they are not used to them but just watch that the horses don't chase them at first as sheep can get very stressed; especially if they are pregnant - it can lead to them aborting. Good luck

JoHewittVINTA 2016-Apr-12 at 09:04AM

Hi. You can get electric sheep netting which is more like a mesh than the larger squares of normal sheep fencing. Normal sheep fencing hasn't caused any problems for my ponies to date but sheep do graze very close to the ground - too short for horses so, yes use sheep to graze off excess grass but keep a close watch as too many sheep will create a literal starvation paddock! Good luck. Cheers, Jo.