# Rotational grazing sheep with cattle?



## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

Is anyone on here rotational grazing sheep with cattle? If so, can you give me some details about how you are doing it. Do you have the cattle, and sheep in the same pasture at the same time? Do you rotate one before the other? What kind of sheep, and cattle are you working with? *What are your stocking rates for each animal?* What part of the country are you in? What are the biggest problems you have in doing this, and what are the biggest benefits? Would you do anything different if you were to start this type of set up again? Any other thoughts would be greatly appreciated


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

Do you have the cattle, and sheep in the same pasture at the same time? Yes, but I'm a small peanut of an operation. 
Do you rotate one before the other? No, they eat together.
What kind of sheep, and cattle are you working with? I have finnsheep and raise dairy steers
*What are your stocking rates for each animal?* I have 7 sheep and 2 steers on 2-3 acres, depending on how well the grass is growing. 
What part of the country are you in? I am in the SW corner of MI
What are the biggest problems you have in doing this, and what are the biggest benefits? 

Problems: keeping the lambs in the electric fencing. I have six strands and they still just run through it. The adult sheep don't go through it very often. We're slowly converting to woven wire fencing. theh sheep will eat the grass way down to the ground while they are standing in the same spot rather than, nipping here walking a bit and nipping again. So I have to watch them or they will graze it down to the soil with lots of good grass all around them. The learning curve has been difficult for me to navigate. When to move them, when to let them stay. Then we had the drought which threw everythign we thought we knew out the window and we just opened the whole pasture area to them to find what they could. Keeping them together means a bit more to work out when it's time to put out the grain. 

Benefits: ease of operation - they are all in the same place at the same time. One water trough. One focus for trouble. Versatility. I can give them 1 acre in early spring and bale the other 5- move the fences to give them 2-3 total acres as the summer heats up and the grass slows down. 

Would you do anything different if you were to start this type of set up again? 
buy more land

The sheep are supposed to do fine on the weeds and less palatable grasses the cattle leave behind. But my sheep are my money makers. The steers are for the freezer. I want nice fleeces and good growth, so I like my sheep to have nice grass too. I swear they will stand by an alfalfa plant and wait for it to grow so they can nip it off before the cows get it.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

Thanks callieslamb, the feedback will help me make a few decisions on what my long term plans are.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

How many sheep do you want to run? How many cows? I'm really too small to be of much use information wise. It's fun to hear what others are doing though.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

I am just in the planning process right now. I have about 40 acres of pasture, and I currently have 15 cow calf pairs on it. I am thinking about reducing the cows to 12 pairs, and possibly adding 30-40 ewes if it would be doable. Still trying to see if it would be profitable also. I don't need pets, I need animals that will produce a profit. Again, any other thoughts you might have would be appreciated.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

find a copy of this month's Stockman Grass Farmer. There is an article about mixing goats and cattle. Acres has had a few similar articles over the last few months. 

From memory, they have recommended one sheep/goat per cow but these were operations trying to maximize cattle production.


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## Bret4207 (May 31, 2008)

Cows, to eat well, need grass long enough to wrap their tongue around. I run the cows ahead of the sheep. The sheep and goats follow the cows IOW. My numbers vary and I doubt my situation is like anyone elses.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

My first thoughts were to have the cows before the sheep because of the fact that the cattle eat the longer grasses, and the sheep eat the shorter stuff. The thought of moving them all at once seems like a good idea though, because it would be less to move, and I hear that the cattle would tend to help keep predators away. As I said though, I am still just trying to think things throug, and get ideas from others at this point. What kind of numbers are you running Bret4207?


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

thestartupman said:


> .........I hear that the cattle would tend to help keep predators away. .........


I am sure they help in our case. We have a large pack of coyotes in our area or several small ones. We hear them all the time. They are very loud and come very close. Once I was outside between the barn and the house and 5 of them ran right in front of me. It was dark and they scared me silly. I hurriedly put the sheep in the barn. However, we've not had a problem yet. We have mostly the electric fence so we're not predator-proof by any means. I have seen my steers chase rabbits and dogs around. I can't say they'd chase a coyote, but I'd think just their size would encourage the varmits to look elsewhere for dinner. If only the steers would discourage raccoons around the chicken pen.


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## Bret4207 (May 31, 2008)

I've run up to 125 sheep/lambs and 30ish head of cattle, plus goats and horses. If you can run the cattle in ahead they'll get the tall stuff and flatten some of it. That's a plus and minus. If you have a predator issue sheep won't readily approach tall grass areas where they can't see. The sheep will follow the cattle and I have seen them eat right up to a cow pie. I've followed the sheep with horses, but that means being real good about not letting the pasture get chewed down and only really works good with idle horses. My experience was not really rotational grazing as most people understand it today, more of switching large pastures. With the electro net I got last year I think I can finally manage to control things better.

I can't run my horses with my cattle. Others may be able to, but my horses love to chase cattle and sheep.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

Bret4207 how many acres of pasture are you using for the amount of animals you are running on it?


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## krebolj (Feb 23, 2013)

Callies Lamb

With 7 sheep and 2 steers how often, if at all, do you have to supplement hay? I have two horses, and am having a hard time decided how many sheep I can get. I have just short of three acres. I plan on having a ram and wether (already planning on feeding hay because they will stay in the paddock I've got for them), but as far as how many ewes...I'm not really sure. I was thinking two or three. During the grazing season we typically let them graze during the day and dry lot overnight so that they don't chew it down to nothing.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

I have winter, so I feed hay for six months of the year. Last year, I started feeding it in Aug, had a bit of a break in Oct and went back to hay in Nov. So much depends on how much grass you have. How much grass do you have extra from just having the horses on it? That will give you a good idea. You could start with just a couple and then add more if you have the grass - take some away if you don't. I may have to ship my steers early this time around. We're reseeding the pasture next month. I'll have to keep them off of it for up to 60 days. I'll run out of hay long before that. They'll have to grazie the hay-portions of the property for a while. You can let them out to graze for only part of the time. 

I have been studying winder forages - turnips, broccoli,oats, etc. I might devote a small piece to that next month and see how long they can graze it. It's a better experiment for fall, but they should grow well for a month here at least. If I can get them in the ground at the right time. It's more commonly planted here in Aug-Sep, and it can be grazed through Jan in some years. Last year, they grazed until March. They don't provide any water either since the crops are mostly water. The test plot I saw was rented from a farmer after he harvested wheat off of it. They planted the bracisias and fed the sheep, tilled in what was left and the farmer was ready to go again in spring for corn, I believe. It was win-win for both farmers. I'd like to think I could extemd my grazing season by a month or two. It would be fantastic!


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## Bret4207 (May 31, 2008)

thestartupman said:


> Bret4207 how many acres of pasture are you using for the amount of animals you are running on it?


I have about 100 acres of pasture. But, most of the pasture is broken up into 10-20 acres size. You can't really control things too well with that size pasture with sheep without some serious cross fencing. The horses and cattle you can control with a single hot wire if the have plenty of graze, but not sheep. Plus, my place isn't flat or rolling farm land broken up in squares. It's ledge, woods, swamp, ponds and cliffs broken up as geography demands, not as I want it. 

As I said, my farm is not a good representative of what people think of as "rotational grazing".


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

Bret4207, when you say that you have 125 sheep /lambs, do you mean that you have 125 sheep, plus lambs not counted? Or do you mean that you have 125 sheep and lambs total? Sorry about the details, I am just trying to get my thoughts about qty of animals on different size acreage. By the way, I know what you mean about your property not being set up for rotaional grazing. My property is cut up by ravens, tree lines, and woods. It makes it hard to set it up to rotational graze.


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## Bret4207 (May 31, 2008)

Up to 125 ewes and lambs, maybe a bit more. I'm sort of aiming for 200 ewes. I think I can create enough pasture for that many and have enough hay to winter that many. Since selling off most of my woolies a couple years back that's 4x what I'm at now. In few months, with luck, I should have close to or over 100 ewes/ewe lambs. The buck rams will go to auction in New Holland Pa in the fall. 

Right now we're working on clearing over grown pasture.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

Okay, I know it has been a long time since I have started this post, but I am back to looking at multi species rotational grazing. I am hoping I can get a lot of thoughts and ideas from others that are doing it, or are planning to do it. This post might get long. I still have 15 cow calf pairs on 80 total acres. Only about 40 acres of it is pasture though. It has about 25 acres of timber in the middle that I have my main HT hot wire following the tree line (hot all the time). I have about 10 Paddocks that I divide up into smaller areas with Poly wire. The perimeter of the property is mostly 5 to 7 strand barbed wire. I do have one 3 acre field that I am planning to completely enclose in field fence (mainly to have a secure are to keep calves I am weaning in from getting through the barbed wire to their mothers, but will also be a good place for holding sheep if needed). My most current plan is to reduce the cattle down to 12 pairs, and add 20-25 sheep. I am also wanting to have 100 - 150 chickens moving with the sheep. I have 2 LGD's that do a great job protecting the 50 free ranging birds I have now. I think I will have to rotate the cattle ahead of the Sheep/ chickens, mainly to keep the cattle from rubbing against any shelters I might have for the chickens, or sheep. I might be able to keep the sheep and chickens in rotation with the cattle, if I think of a way to have any shelters near the main hot wire, and surround the shelter with a single strained that I jump to the hot wire. One thought I have would be to mob graze the cattle through a paddock, then once they are in the next paddock, move the sheep, and chickens to the paddock the cattle just left, either in small sections at a time daily, or the whole paddock for 5-7 days. My thought is that the sheep will eat around the cow patties, and the chickens will spread them out. One thing to keep in mind, is that I am doing this full time, so even though I would like to keep the my labor time to a minimum, if it was profitable, it really wouldn't matter if I worked from sunrise to sunset. Here are a few questions I will throw out there for any and all to answer. Some of them will be problems I see, and others will be just thoughts and ideas.
1) My rough ideas for shelters, will be to have 2 mobile chicken coops for egg layers, and have some kind of roof shelter that would connect between the two coops for the dogs, and sheep. Will probably have a few chicken tractors for meat birds also.
2) Fencing thoughts- The main hot wire that surrounds the timber is single strained, I have thought about changing it to 4 hot wires, and using 3 to 4 strains of poly wire to section off areas for the sheep and chickens. I know the chickens can get out of the areas with any fence system I have, so I am not worried about that, they will come back to the coops at night. Might use several rolls of electronet instead of poly wire for the smaller sections. Any thoughts or ideas on the best fencing idea would be greatly appreciated.
3) Water- the cattle use pond water when away from the house, but it wont be easy to use for the sheep. I plan to have Two 40 gal water tanks that I keep filled with a barrel from the tractor twice per day. Will this be enough water? Any other thoughts or ideas?
4) Feed- I know I will have to keep the sheep out of the chicken feed, and my plan will be to only feed them inside the 2 coops. The dogs will be fed twice per day just as they are now. They are use to keeping chickens and pigs out of their food, so I don't think it will be any problem.
5) Type of sheep- I plan to have year around lambing, but I am not completely set on this. I am looking at the following sheep mix, but I am just starting this process Katahdin, Romanov, St. Croix, and Dorper. I am pretty sure I want to stay with hair sheep, unless someone can convince me other wise.
6) Lambing- Again my plan is to lamb year around, and using only the portable shelter if possible. I do have barns up near three of the paddocks that I could use during the harshest part of winter, but would prefer to keep them moving at least until I am having to feed hay. I may move the cattle and other animals into the same area at this point. Any thoughts on this would be great. 
I know I seem to be thinking outside the box with these ideas, but maybe I am not, maybe there are others that are already doing this type of work. Any positive thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Sorry the post is so long.


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## sky61 (Feb 9, 2013)

As usual, I am sure there are many different perspectives on this, but for stocking rates you can visit some of the university extension sites online and check the grazing management for various size and types of animals. They usually break it down into animal units. I know the assumption is that the sheep are eating some of the forbs that the cattle tend to leave behind. And of course it depends on pasture quality. 
I put my Katahdins in a cow pasture with two hot HT wires and they never got out, but they were all adults and there was plenty of grazing for them on that side of the fence. I use electronet at night because of predators.
Again, only speaking about my experience with katahdins, they only need enough shelter to keep them out of the blazing sun and the pouring rain. Any other weather condition they don't seem to mind and I am sure they could put up with the rain if they had no other choice. But they do need shelter from the summer sun. They do not seem to mind the cold weather of zone 7, even after this past extreme winter. Mine have only lambed during the coldest winter days. Again, they really didn't seem to need a jug or a barn. 
The sheep drink very little water except when they are lactating.
I only supplement feed when they are lactating or when the snow is so deep they cannot scratch through it, but I always seem to have some stockpiled fescue; so it depends on your setup. If the sheep have decent grazing access, I don't think they will want to eat anyone else's kibble. Maybe this is already mentioned in the thread and maybe you already know this, but you must keep the sheep out of the cattle mineral because of copper toxicity with the sheep. 
Katahdins and hair sheep in general seem to be the way you would want to go, but I have never owned another breed other than Katahdins, so there might be other great options. 
Mine lamb in the winter and they seem to do fine with just a two sided tent structure. Some of the lambs were only two days old when we had single digits and they didn't seem to be bothered at all. It will be interesting to see what you end up doing with this setup, so keep the post updated.


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## purplequeenvt (Mar 3, 2013)

When using a grazing method like this it generally runs 1) sheep 2) cattle 3) poultry. The idea is that the sheep eat what they like first followed by the cattle who clean up everything else and who also end up digesting some of the sheep parasites (they don't share most worms) thus reducing your parasite load (in theory). You finish the rotation with the chickens. They run around a scratch through the manure, spreading it around so it more effectively fertilizes the pasture.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

Purplequeenvt, have you had experience with this yourself, or are you just passing on information that you have heard about from others? If you have experience yourself, can you tell me more about it? Like, how many of each kind of animals do you have? How much pasture are you using? How did you deal with water? Thanks for any help you can give.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

I have already found a problem to my plans. I just expainded the area my LGD's are in with three strain hot wire. My female LGD has gotten out of the area about a dozen times now. I keep adjusting were I think she is getting out, but it won't be long before she finds another way out. I am getting ready to go to town to get more wire for the Petsafe fencing. I know this will get her retrained again in just a few days, but I was hoping she had learned to respect all of my 3 strained hot wire by now. I might have to go with electric netting after all on my rotational grazing system.


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## purplequeenvt (Mar 3, 2013)

We rotational graze, but I don't follow the sheep/cattle/chicken pattern. I did a bunch of reading a few years ago and would use that method if I had the right setup for it. Our balance of sheep to cattle is off so it won't work well. 

We used the electric net for a long time, but we've moved out of that and into polywire. We use 4-5 strands for the sheep. Most of them would stay in 3-4 strands, but the LGDs wouldn't and we have a coyote problem (or did last year before we trapped 6 last fall). 

We have a water tank that sits in the bucket of our tractor that we drive around to fill tanks every day. 

Ideal rotational grazing would be to graze an area in 2-3 days before moving on, but I try to make areas large enough to last 5-7 days. Even then it felt like I was moving fences all day, every day. And now I have a part time (full time for several months) job to work around too.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

purplequeenvt I still think the rotation should go Cattle / Sheep, and chickens. I suppose if I was to rotate in this manner, and had too many sheep, or not enough cattle, it would cause a problem because the sheep would need moved sooner than the cattle. I think my numbers would work well though if I keep the daily or twice daily move with the cattle, then follow with the sheep, and chickens every 4-7 days. There may be times I skip a move the sheep and chicken to catch them back up to the cattle. I would be interested in your thoughts and inputs on these plans. I do have a few questions for you. When using 4-5 strands of poly wire, how did you feed it out? Did you have 4-5 individual reels? Did you string the polywire several strands at a time, or did you strech it out one at a time? What king of post do you use? Do you have trouble keeping tension on all the strands at the corners? What was your reason for going away from electric netting? I have my rotational set up for the cattle were I can move them quicker than I can feeding them hay, but I feed hay twice per day, and I hand unroll it when I do. I know that adding sheep is going to take me more time, but if I can keep those moves to only once or twice per week, it shouldn't be too bad.


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## purplequeenvt (Mar 3, 2013)

thestartupman said:


> purplequeenvt I still think the rotation should go Cattle / Sheep, and chickens. I suppose if I was to rotate in this manner, and had too many sheep, or not enough cattle, it would cause a problem because the sheep would need moved sooner than the cattle. I think my numbers would work well though if I keep the daily or twice daily move with the cattle, then follow with the sheep, and chickens every 4-7 days. There may be times I skip a move the sheep and chicken to catch them back up to the cattle. I would be interested in your thoughts and inputs on these plans. I do have a few questions for you. When using 4-5 strands of poly wire, how did you feed it out? Did you have 4-5 individual reels? Did you string the polywire several strands at a time, or did you strech it out one at a time? What king of post do you use? Do you have trouble keeping tension on all the strands at the corners? What was your reason for going away from electric netting? I have my rotational set up for the cattle were I can move them quicker than I can feeding them hay, but I feed hay twice per day, and I hand unroll it when I do. I know that adding sheep is going to take me more time, but if I can keep those moves to only once or twice per week, it shouldn't be too bad.


Grazing the cattle first kind of defeats the purpose of using this method. The sheep go first. They are the pickiest and will eat what they like first. 

Then the cattle come through. They will clean up whatever the sheep left behind. Also, cattle and sheep don't share intestinal parasites (at least not the main problem ones) so when the cattle ingest the sheep's worms, they effectively interrupt the life cycle and you have fewer parasite problems.

Poultry are last. They pick at the poop and break it up which allows it to break down faster and fertilize the pasture.

We moved away from the netting because the stuff we had was 12+ years old and was dying. There were so many tears that it wasn't charging well and we could only do so much patching. It was too expensive to replace. We also lost a lot of lambs in the netting over the years.

We now use polywire with t-posts for the corners and plastic step-in posts for the sides. 

I set up the fence one wire at a time. I build a gate into the fence so instead of going around and around, I go back and forth.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

purplequeenvt, so are you saying that you only use one reel because the area you are putting the poly wire up is small enough? I think I understand what you are saying about going back and forth. You start and one side where you are saying you want a gate, then work your way around until you get to the other side. Then you just move your way up the post and begin heading back the other direction? What do you use for gates? You say that you use T-post for the corners, are you talking standard metal T-post? If so, do you leave the T-post in place for the next time you come through the area, or do you pull and move them each time? Do you have much problems with the polywire grounding out on these post? I do appreciate your taking the time to answer my questions. I apologize for asking so many.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

Just an update on my LGD. She must have gotten out 10 times or more until I set the Petsafe wire up around the perimiter. she has now been in without any problems for the 3rd day now. I can't say enough about using this system with these dogs.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

purplequeenvt , I am not sure that either of us will change one another's minds about what animals to rotate first, but here is my reasoning. Cattle going first will eat the longer grasses, and will leave plenty of grasses around their own manure, even manure from a year ago that hasn't broken down well. The sheep will follow and should clean up the grasses even around the cattle manure. The grasses will also be shortened for them allowing the LGD's to see what is going on with the sheep and chickens better, and the sheep prefer the shorter grasses. The reason for running the chickens with the sheep, is simply to not have three different groups to move. They will spread the manure of all the animals well. This should break up the worm cycle for both the cattle, and the sheep, no matter which ones go first.


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## dlskidmore (Apr 18, 2012)

Callieslamb said:


> I have been studying winder forages - turnips, broccoli,oats, etc.


I've been looking into that a lot too. Winter grazing doesn't work in our situation, but I'm growing root veggies and winter squashes to supplement hay in winter.


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## Rob30 (Nov 2, 2004)

We have been grazing sheep, goats and cattle for several years now. We have grazed them together and separately. Grazing them together has many benefits. The main advantage is worm control. I just read an article in my Ontario sheep magazine that stressed that more sheep are killed yearly by worms then by coyotes. On top of this our chemical wormers are becoming less efficient at killing them. Cattle will graze off the worms and effectively "clean" a pasture for the sheep. As far as coyotes are concerned, grazing sheep and cattle together should decrease predation. Our main issue when grazing together is my guard dogs do not like the cows. Grazing sheep after cows can be hard on a pasture. Depending on how you are rotating. When rotationally grazing a blade of grass should get nipped off, then allowed about 30 days to recover. In this system the grass gets nipped off, then before it gets a chance to recover it gets nipped again, possibly right to the roots by a sheep. Overgrazing is much more of a risk with sheep then cattle. As far as fencing is concerned we run three hot wires and that keeps the sheep and cattle in. They only push the fences in the fall when grass is getting scares. We train them all to the fence every spring and we have a very strong fencer. As far as water is concerned we use 250 gallon totes for the sheep. Cattle however would need a larger tank. They drink substantially more then sheep. When grass is lush, sheep drink minimally. 
This has been our experience for the last 11 years.


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## thestartupman (Jul 25, 2010)

The water issue, and the fact I want to run chickens with the sheep is the reason I have been thinking about keeping them separate. The cattle I have set up to water out of the edge of ponds when away from the barnyard. I think it would be impossible to keep my LGD's in at the ponds. I also think the cattle would tear up any kind of coop or chicken tractor.


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## dlskidmore (Apr 18, 2012)

I've had sheep try to stand on my chicken tractor.


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