posted 12 years ago
We have three barbados sheep and three goats in the same paddock, at least we used to until the one buck started trying to mate with our female sheep which was in heat. We did a little searching and found that they can actually impregnate the sheep, but the baby can be still born or sterile. We don't want to go that route. We want sheep babies not hybrids. So, we separated them. You don't want to give sheep the same mineral supplement if it has copper in it. While goats have a high nutritional requirement for copper, it can be toxic to sheep. To overcome this problem, we gave the goats half size Copasure boluses of copper rods that should stay inside their bellies for months, and we feed both goat and sheep dolomite and sea kelp in their soaked grain and set out a salt lick as a supplement. Keeping both together hasn't been a problem until breeding time.