Sheep and Dexters

[Colin]

I'm thinking about keeping some sheep this year. What are the Do's and Don'ts of keeping both sheep and Dexter cattle e.g.should they always be kept apart in separate fields ?

Regards,

Colin

[Broomcroft]

We keep Dexters and sheep together all the time Colin. I prefer to keep them separate to make it easier for handing, moving about, but that isn't always practical. Myself, I would NOT keep lambs with cows, at least not young lambs, but other than that the only problem has been getting just the cows or just the sheep out of the field. If they are all bucket trained that could be interesting!

When they are first introduced you may get calves/yearlings chasing the sheep a bit.

I think there is a reason some people say to keep them separate, but we've not had any problems at all.

PS. My cattle don't have horns.

[Anna]

(My answer is from a Swedish point of view, but I guess you have similar circumstances to be aware of.) I would make sure not to bring any foot rot, liver flukes or Haemonchus contortus in. The cattle may not have any problems with sheep foot rot or Haemonchus, but it is very difficult to get rid of it when keeping cattle and sheep in the same fields.

If you already have liver flukes or Haemonchus contortus on your pasture, sheep can suffer badly from it.

[Mark Bowles]

My main problem of running sheep and cattle together is avoiding copper in the mineral licks. Sheep don't have it but cattle do. Last year i thought i had removed all my red rockies from the field when i introduced sheep but i missed some, the outcome was one of my Wiltshire Horns lost her hair. How novel is that, she didn't loose all of it, i caught it in time.Otherwise i don't have a problem, they tend to keep in their own groups. I would not put young lambs on their mothers in with cattle.

[Colin]

Thanks for the info, it is really helpful. I'm interested in Wiltshire Horns. Any other common diseases to be careful of ?

Regards,

Colin

[Colin]

My last post I was a little ambiguous. I meant to say any other diseases which sheep and Dexters share in common to be careful about e.g. TB, Johnes. We are almost a closed herd for the Dexters. For the occasional new additions we blood test first.

Regards,

Colin

[Broomcroft]

Colin - I think if you're rotating your grazing sheep/cattle/sheep/cattle etc, that can't be much different to keeping them together except maybe nose-to-nose contact. I practice, you won't get many or any sheep and cattle going nose-to-nose, except the occasional inquisitive calf, so I don't see much difference even if there are diseases they share.

[Duncan MacIntyre]

There are a few disease risks between sheep and cattle, some already mentioned like very unusual cases of BVD, a bit of doubt over the relationship between ovine and bovine Johnes disease, there is a very significant increase in the likelihood of cattle getting leptospirosis if the grazing is shared or if there are sheep upstream from cattle (but as far as I know the sheep are unaffected by the leptosipirosis and act as carriers only). Obviously such nasties as FMD will transfer. Fluke and some types of worms are shared.

But no doubt there are benefits as well - the two species eat differently, so can complement each other in grazing patterns, most but not all worms are different so one species can clean the ground for the other,

Differences in feed requirements can be a pain in the neck during winter feeding times, especially if your sheep are a copper sensitive breed. North Ronaldsays are the extreme for copper sensitivity, with texels in between and Scottish Blackfaces not too bad.

Duncan

[Broomcroft]

We had mild copper poisoning in our lambs a few years ago from the lamb creep feed. I didn't realise that even though copper isn't added for sheep obviously, it can be in the raw materials they use to make up the feed, it says it on the labels. We had two breeds in the fields, Shropshires and Lleyns. The Shropshires started to die and the Lleyns just looked off-colour. Luckily we caught it very early.