# Sheep on 1/2 acre?



## eden (Mar 2, 2019)

Is it realistic to have 2 milk sheep on 1/2 acre? There's already chain link all around. If the space is adequate, how would the fence need to be modified to keep them in? Thanks!


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## Mike CHS (Mar 2, 2019)

I answered your other post so I'm glad you started your own. What kind of neighborhood is your property situated in?  The reason I ask is referring to neighborhood dogs.  They can be your worst problem and among the hardest to deal with.  You can keep sheep on any amount of acreage but with that small of a property you will be supplementing with feed and hay (a lot) since they will have any grass gone in short order.  I think @Baymule or @Devonviolet had at some point some chain link so I assume they will be along at some point to confirm or deny.


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## Baymule (Mar 3, 2019)

The chain link fence should keep them in. Your problem will be in keeping dogs OUT. A hot wire ran at the top and at the bottom will take care of that.


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## Niele da Kine (Oct 28, 2020)

This is two sheep on a quarter acre, but we have high rainfall, lots of grass and are willing to feed sheep instead of mowing.  We started fencing for sheep before the new neighbors moved in and they brought a young pit bull.  I was really worried about the dog eating the sheep, but they actually get along really well with each other.  I've since removed the tin roofing I'd put there to keep the dog from looking at the sheep.  They like to hang out near each other and occasionally they bump heads through the fence.

Their pit bull friend will hopefully do a lot towards keeping other dogs away.


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## Baymule (Oct 28, 2020)

I don't like pit bulls, but there are some very good ones out there. Our neighbor has 2 that are terrific dogs. It sounds like your neighbors have one of the good ones.


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## Mike CHS (Oct 28, 2020)

Our neighbor has 5 pit bulls (all rescues) that are as sweet as I have ever seen.


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## Beekissed (Oct 28, 2020)

Depending on your climate, you'll soon be out of grass for them...they are voracious eaters.  You'll also have a lot of impact on the soils, so the chances for parasites and coccidia may increase with time, as well as other soil born bacteria and fungi.   If none of that bothers you and you'll be prepared for those things, then it's definitely doable.


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## Niele da Kine (Oct 29, 2020)

Mike CHS said:


> Our neighbor has 5 pit bulls (all rescues) that are as sweet as I have ever seen.





Baymule said:


> I don't like pit bulls, but there are some very good ones out there. Our neighbor has 2 that are terrific dogs. It sounds like your neighbors have one of the good ones.



Yeah, there's some 'good' pitbulls, but any dog will bite at some point over it's lifetime and when a pit bull bites, it's got a jaw structure that can do some serious damage.  They're bred to 'maul' instead of just bite and let go like a wolf type dog.  Kinda like the difference between a really sweet shark and a grumpy goldfish, maybe the sweet shark won't bite but if it does you'll really notice it.   The neighbors also have small children, I kinda worry that they will get bit at some point.  The dog is very friendly, but it still has scary abilities.  Maybe I'm just worrying about nothing, though, the sheep and the dog do seem to get along amazingly well, although I had very low expectations so as long as the sheep don't get eaten that's in the 'amazing' category for me.

A chain link fence should keep out neighborhood dogs if they can't climb over it so maybe a line of electric fence at the top or a line of barbed wire at the top would be useful?  Around here we have feral pigs so the farmers who want to fence them out of their fields put a line of barb at the base of the fence, if there's digging dogs, that may be something to do.  Barb wire isn't that expensive.


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## Niele da Kine (Oct 29, 2020)

Beekissed said:


> Depending on your climate, you'll soon be out of grass for them...they are voracious eaters.  You'll also have a lot of impact on the soils, so the chances for parasites and coccidia may increase with time, as well as other soil born bacteria and fungi.   If none of that bothers you and you'll be prepared for those things, then it's definitely doable.



If there's not enough room for cross fencing, what are the best practices for combating parasites and coccidia?  Periodic worming medicine?  

Since we fenced our back yard and got two sheep, the neighbors also fenced their's and got two sheep.  We may try to talk the next neighbor over into fencing her back yard and let us move our four sheep from yard to yard to yard to keep all three back yards mowed.  That would allow for us to do rotational grazing, but until the sheep get the grass flat in the back yard here, we want them to keep on task if possible.  Guess I should ask the shepherdess we got our two sheep from what worming medicine she uses and how often.  She has rotational grazing, though, so we would possibly need to medicate more often?

How different are 'herd management' practices when one's herd is all of two sheep?


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## Beekissed (Oct 29, 2020)

Niele da Kine said:


> If there's not enough room for cross fencing, what are the best practices for combating parasites and coccidia?  Periodic worming medicine?
> 
> Since we fenced our back yard and got two sheep, the neighbors also fenced their's and got two sheep.  We may try to talk the next neighbor over into fencing her back yard and let us move our four sheep from yard to yard to yard to keep all three back yards mowed.  That would allow for us to do rotational grazing, but until the sheep get the grass flat in the back yard here, we want them to keep on task if possible.  Guess I should ask the shepherdess we got our two sheep from what worming medicine she uses and how often.  She has rotational grazing, though, so we would possibly need to medicate more often?
> 
> How different are 'herd management' practices when one's herd is all of two sheep?



It's a good idea to do rotational grazing with the neighbor but if they too have the same sort of acreage size and same number of sheep, you are back where you started....too many sheep on too little land.  Be aware that they may not eat ALL the grass you have as they can be picky about what they eat, so leaving them on it until it's all gone will likely result in them overeating the good stuff right down to the soil....that destroys all the good grass and it won't really recover after awhile.   It also has them eating grass down to where the parasites live.  

Parasites complete their life cycle~they say~on grass 3 in or shorter, so keeping grass taller than 3 in. may help decrease parasite loads....but nigh impossible on 1/2 acre and 2 sheep.  

I wouldn't worm on a schedule as you will likely just develop resistant worms that no longer respond to dewormers.  You can do a fecal on them to determine worm loads and only worm if they are heavily infested.  

Herd management is easier with less stock but it also depends on the type of sheep you are getting...wool breed management is different than hair breeds.


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## Niele da Kine (Oct 30, 2020)

This is Cypress and Flower, they're two Clun Forest wool sheep.

They have a quarter acre of grass that's pretty much between six and nine feet tall, plus ti leaves and other assorted vegetation.  They've been there since early August and so far they've made trails around the perimeter and a couple trails through the center.  They've learned to jump up on the grass to bring the tops down within reach, but there's still a lot of grass in there.  As they eat the tall stuff, it sprouts back and they like the sprouts better than the tall stuff so at some point there may reach a balance where enough tall grass has been eaten down that there's enough sprouting grass that they don't need to knock any more tall stuff down.  In three months, they've cleared trails and you can tell they've been in the pasture, but it's nowhere near pasture like yet.  I think it's clearing slow enough though that once they do get it into pasture it may support them without much additional feed.  The neighbors have a different type of grass, a lot of perennial peanut and some shorter grasses, not much of the Guinea/cane/elephant/Reznor grasses that we  have.  They have two hair sheep which are about a third the size of the two here and their sheep don't seem to be clearing off their pasture much at all.  But, it's only been three months for them to have sheep as well so we will see what happens six months to a year from now.

Should they graze their pasture down to bare dirt, I have a friend with five acres of tall grass and she can always use more sheep but we're hoping to keep them here to keep the back yard into something less like a jungle.


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