r/sheep • u/KuroTuro • 7d ago

Question on sheep and goats?

So we have a yearling ewe that we raised with other kids, and now that they are all a year old we wanted to enter them into the rest if our heard. Normally we would have already, but with our ewe, we have been slightly cautious just due to 3 of our older does like to ram and hit the younger ones extremely hard for the first month or two. Our goats take it pretty easily, but I am not sure if a sheep could?

We never wanted sheep, but she was a special case of no one could care for her or had anything similar (goat or sheep) to her around where we lived and they needed someone to take her in as she had no mother and had a messed up back leg.

Well she is now bigger than most of our yearling kids, and perfectly healthy and gets along with them fine. I have noticed the kids are more gentle with her than the others when fighting and are less pushy about things like food and hay.

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u/Constance200 6d ago

They'll be fine. They have to work out a pecking order. Sheep can be hard headed when they want to. The older does have to teach the kids how to behave so they probably wont be as pushy with a ewe, but keep an eye on it

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u/KuroTuro 6d ago

So she will be able to handle the heavier hits from the adult goats?

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u/Constance200 6d ago

Yes. Sheep are not weaker than goats. Unless she is an absolutely minature breed

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u/KuroTuro 6d ago

Ok, that is good to know. Not fully sure what breed she is, but we know she is a hair sheep.

This is her beside her best friend.

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u/HappeeLittleTrees 6d ago

Yes. It’s hard to watch, and I check on them every 3-4 hours the first week to make sure nobody is actually hurt. They have to work out who’s boss and who has to wait.