When my man and I first brought sheep home, neither of us had personally owned one before. Because our knowledge base was so small, I was eager to learn all about them! So far, the biggest surprise has been their eating habits! What do sheep eat? Here’s what I discovered.
It Isn’t What You’d Expect
I quickly learned that sheep don’t particularly care for grass or even clover. It was photos like this (see below) that led me to assume sheep primarily sustained themselves on these two greens, much like a horse or cow.
I soon learned this wasn’t true! While sheep will consume some grass, they actually prefer and do best on forbs (non-grass plants).
After a walk through our pasture, I’ve accumulated a list of herbaceous plants our sheep consume with great relish…while the green grass grows knee-high!
Broadleaf Plantain
This plant can be found in almost every pasture here in the northwest. Turn your sheep loose to graze and it will quickly disappear!
Common Chicory
Sheep won’t eat the tough stems of mature chicory plants but they will nibble off greens, tips and blossoms, leaving a bare stalk behind.
Common Mallow
Both leaves and flowers of this creeping plant will feed your woolly mammals. Once again, they won’t eat tough, fibrous stems, but everything else is an option!
Dandelion Varieties
I was surprised to discover that sheep love both dandelion greens and flowers. In fact, they often consume these plants first!
Deciduous Trees & Shrubs
Like goats, sheep will eat tree leaves and tips. Thus far, we’ve observed them consuming willow, peach and plum. They aren’t afraid to rear up on hind legs to increase their reach, so keep them out of the orchard!
Perennial Sow Thistle
While both the Bull and Canadian thistle readily grow in a many a pasture, sheep won’t do more than nibble at tender tops.
However, the leaves, flowers and stalks of the perennial sow thistle are consumed by these animals with great relish! In fact, this plant seemed to be one of our sheep’s favorites! They quickly decimated the small patch in their pasture, along with the prickly wild lettuce (click link for identification).
The List Goes On
In most cases, if a herbaceous plant is young, tender and green, sheep will eat it without a second thought! A sheep’s diet is similar to that of a goat, though perhaps less ‘scrubby’ in general.
There are a few plants your sheep may not eat. Here’s what we’ve discovered so far!
Plants Your Sheep May Not Eat
- The first (ironically) is lambs quarters, also known as goosefoot. Our sheep’s pasture has more than a few untouched ramblers going to seed!
- If young and tender, sheep will consume redroot pigweed. However, it isn’t their first preference and the plant will often be left to mature.
- A virtually untouched weed in our pasture is the yellow flowered mullein stalk.
- As mentioned above, sheep won’t brave the prickles of most thistle varieties. You’ll want to remove these from the pasture yourself.
What Do Sheep Eat?
In our experience, sheep prefer herbaceous plants and even trees or shrubs to perfectly manicured, grassy pastures. So if you’re planning to get sheep, make sure their grazing land offers a variety of plants and isn’t just plain old grass!
They’ll be healthier and happier for it!
Wanna know how to treat sheep that get into the grain bins? You can read about and watch the video it here!
Hi, my name is Autumn and I'm all about whole food cooking, gardening, preserving and nourishing the home in a traditional manner.
It might depend on the sheep? Mine love grasses and that’s what they go for first. Now they have branched out to eating wild radish and daikon greens, too, some clover.
Maybe it’s because they started out on grass and alfalfa hay as lambs (everything around here is dried up by early summer, so it’s hay until the first rains bring back the greens…) Anyway, it’s possible for them to love grass…
That’s interesting! Ours would eat grass, but it certainly wasn’t their first choice. And when I did research, I discovered that it’s typical for sheep to prefer forbs to grass.
What about ornament grasses, will sheep eat those? Like the stipia tinuissima (ponytails) grasses?
Hey there! All I really know about are the plant types we had in their pasture. I noticed they preferred what we would call “weeds” to native grasses.
Thanks for your article, it was really helpful. I hope you can help me with another sheep matter? Our neighbour has about 50 sheep who seem to have decided that they live at our place. We love having them visit and have 3 large fields where they can snack on weeds and grass. This has been fine for about 8 months but now they have decided to eat our garden, so far thousands of dollars damage. We contacted the (part time) farmer who replied ‘Opps’ and hasn’t attended his property to even check what they are up to since being told.
We don’t want to cause a fuss or have any ill will but we also can’t afford to keep replacing destroyed plants and trees. I’m guess I am hoping that you may have a wise way of detering them from the plants so everyone is happy. BTW fencing meaning nothing to them, they are essentially ‘freerange’ , go under and over fences,in everyones yard and all over the road.
What a predicament! I would advise you to keep trying to talk with your farmer. Legally, he/she is responsible for any damage their animals cause.
If the sheep are destroying your garden and trees, that’s on the farmer, not you. I would try to have an open, respectful conversation with him/her and work something out together, both in terms of compensation and in keeping sheep away from your yard and garden.
If you can’t get anywhere with your farmer? A 4 ft high, metal woven wire fence and a solid gate will keep sheep out of your garden.
You can make sheep-proof garden fencing from metal T fence posts and several rolls of woven wire. Place your posts every 8 ft to create a tight fence sheep can’t squeeze under.
You can also create fences around your trees using T fence posts and woven wire. Just make sure the fence line extends several feet BEYOND your tree branches, or the sheep will still rear up on their hind legs to get at them, using the fence to balance themselves.
Tightly-strung woven wire is the only thing that seems to work well with sheep. It’s not cheap, but it will do the trick!
Hopefully that helps!
Autumn
I’ve recently inherited a mature Ram getting an ewe this weekend. How can I tell when she is pregnsnt? How long to birth?
Patricia, I’ve never actually bred sheep before, but I know the gestation period is 140-145 days. If you want to know where or not your ewe is pregnant, you need to get a vet to check and test her for you! I dont think there’s any other reliable way to tell (especially not early on).
Good to know! We got two ewes a month ago and they are definitely ignoring the nicest grass, which was confusing. They like the creeping Bermuda though. Thanks for sharing.
Funny, isn’t it? Totally threw me off too! But now I know…! Good luck with your sheep!
This was very useful to me. Born and lived in London for half a century until six years ago when I achieved my very long-term dream of “emigrating” to a coastal village in north Cornwall. My neighbour is a sheep farmer. His two rams used to live in the field at the top of my garden and I would feed them carrot bits, greens etc. Alas a developer bought the field and the rams are gone to another one, some way off. They still get their vegetable scraps but I was delighted to find that they eat dandelions and similar plants that are commonly discarded. So now rather than composting them, they will be recycled for the sheep – and rams – to enjoy.
Congrats on your move! Those rams are lucky to have you nearby!