Sheep suck. Even the hair sheep that don’t need shearing. They make the most tender, accident prone horse look self sufficient. They don’t even eat weeds. They are pickier about hay than horses. And the rams will destroy fences. And then get loose. I can’t warn severely enough. Don’t go there!
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Goats don’t eat just any old hay either, or at least ours didn’t, but cattails! OMG he loved the cattails in the ditch outside our shedrow.
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“…daring escape…” Lol.
We’ve had better luck in my neighborhood. It’s wildfire central around here. If not for my landlord’s staying and fighting the Dec. 2017 Thomas Fire with garden hoses, my little ranger cabin would have been incinerated.
Since then, the county has hired goats to chew down the fuel level. So far, so good.
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Exactly my experience, too.
Get sheep if you want sheep (in the same way some of us want chestnut TB mares even though we know better). But don’t get them because they might be “easy” pasture maintenance.
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Goats and sheep are interchangeable as far as eating in a pasture and for getting out of fences. The plus side of goats is that their copper requirements are similar to horses while sheep can’t/shouldn’t have nearly as much. We can feed our goats the same feeds that the horses get but it would be too much copper for sheep. Another plus of goats is they don’t need to be sheared. We’ve had a Katahdin (hair) sheep and he was very sweet and a good compromise on the sheep/goat genres. We feed our goats now exactly what the horses get and all is well.
I’ve lived on a sheep ranch and I’ve had many goats through the years, have two now. The sheep I had as pets were every bit as smart and personable as the goats and both do fine with horses if the horses don’t chase them. I love sheep; I’ve never found them to be dumb or difficult at all.
Both are browsers; they’ll eat some of this and some of that and if you rely on them to eradicate a certain weed they will not, just to be contrary. lol They are good for spotted knapweed though and for cleaning up randoms that the horses don’t like.
If you get either one don’t get horns. Horns get stuck in things. I’d also get does/ewes; a wether is more prone to urinary blockages that are heart breaking and, as above, you don’t want to deal with a billy goat or a ram.
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Don’t they just! Everyone figured out not to park in front of our shedrow where the goat was tethered very quickly, unless they were driving a Ram truck. The only thing he wouldn’t bounce his horns off of. I kid you not. Fences he learned early when he discovered electric fence at the training centre we were at.
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Yes for sure I was going to get dehorned. I didn’t even realize domesticated sheep had horns. I really need that Storeys book.
I didn’t know that about wethers either, although I guess it makes sense. Our cat had a blockage and it was super expensive to get fixed, and now he can only eat special (expensive) food. I had thought I’d get one wether and one female. So hmm.
I am shocked to read that sheep are more injury / sickness prone than horses. Geez. I don’t need something that is that likely to kill itself. I’ve already got one horse that in the 1.5 years I’ve had him has had something like 10 incidents of one kind or another. In one case, he bit off a Christmas light and electrocuted himself, then tried to go back for more. He’s very special.
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Sheep seem to be at the top of every predator’s list. And the sheep are often pretty defenseless. Those who have had them have not had difficulty with fences, etc.
My BO had goats to “eat the weeds and brush”. They mostly ate horse feed and decorative plants. They also like to butt things - including knees! They were tough to contain. I was not a fan.
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Loose goats will play king of the mountain on vehicles.
If there are loose dogs where you are, goats will be continuously bothered/attacked.
A neighbor raised boar meat goats for a while, had to quit when he just could not keep coyotes and loose dogs from attacking them.
We had a small goat dairy and kept goats behind 6’ chainlink fences and shut them in at night, to keep them in and safe.
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And they will pull back and break their necks, bust their horns off or tear up the fence in the process. Or all three.
And dogs like to massacre them.
And they need hoof care.
And a squeeze to tend to them.
The lambs are cute. Bottle feeding them when the ewes either die or reject them is less cute.
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They both need appropriate fencing, for sure, and strong. They are strong as little hogs and will muscle their way into situations. If I had a dollar for every mile of sheep fence I’ve had a part in building and repairing and then maybe a dollar for every sheep or goat head I’ve pulled out of a square of woven wire fencing I’d have long since retired. ha ha (that’s the no horns thing) We had sections of land with fence that was intended to contain sheep and cows and it wasn’t on flat ground; oh the stories I could tell. But they were easier for me to get in than the cows or horses ever were, I could fire up the 4 wheeler and as soon as they heard it they would RUN back in and remember where it was they got out. We never did find them to be dumb but they are their own creatures; they do things their own way, just like horses or any other animal.
This time around I got little goats that are too short to jump up on a vehicle lol Goats do have a strong sense of play and athleticism. My pet goats have meant as much to me as a dog; such fun little turds.
We never had a sheep or goat break their neck in a fence and that’s out of 300-500-ours would sit out there waiting for us to come pinch their heads out lol, I’ve lost many a bottle lamb but OP didn’t mention breeding sheep or goats-losing the babies is never fun, we never had a squeeze for them b/c they are not difficult to cram up against a wall or corner when needed, we did their foot care. We just didn’t have bad experiences with the sheep in the years we had them. But I really liked them and “got them” I guess, and so did the rancher that had selected all the stock over 60 years, maybe she was selecting for things that made them easier to deal with since we had good luck with them. I wouldn’t doubt it, actually.
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I think my mom had three break their necks bc they got their horns stuck in the fence. Small flocks so relatively high rate of incidence. She was raising Gulf Coast Natives which should have been well suited for our climate here on the Gulf Coast.
Blue tongue was a perennial issue as well.
I’ve strong armed sheep myself but a squeeze or at least a head gate is a minimum requirement for facility imo.
We did have a chute system that spit them into the shearing wagon (converted semi trailer for the shearing crew that covered our part of the state). We could run them out the end of that and wrestle them down in a small pen. I’m sure Darwin had something to do with how our sheep operated, as well as 60 generations of sheep that proved themselves able to thrive on that place. I still miss lambing even though it was brutal a lot and sometimes I miss just working them, I loved how they moved like water, the slightest change in pressure would move all of them…that Aussie that I paid so much for (for us at the time) was so good at it, one step… down. And the whole situation would change. See, happy memories 
with an Aussie to boot!
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Dogs can really help. Mom had no more losses to dogs after she got the Anatolians. She had an older GSD when she first got sheep and was a good helper with no training. Later she got an English Shepherd that was very promising as a pup but dispersed the flock before he worked much.
The Anatolians and the English Shepherd remain as pets 
The horses stayed too.
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Whatever the OP decides, the goat and sheep stories have fully entertained me this evening. Thank you all. Cloven hoofed ungulates apparently prompt vivid writing.
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when i was working in the horse industry during college at the saddlehorse farm I worked one day there was horse missing in the pasture, he was later found dead with a broken neck after he had hooked his nylon halter on a fence.
At our place these days, the one horse that has to wear a halter when in out, the halter has a break away crown, I do not want to find another like the one many tears ago
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I must have an exceptional goat. Eldest Gruff, hangs with the horses and only occasionally goes out of the fence to eat things. In his younger days, he did roam more but now he mostly stays with his horses. He’s too big to jump on cars and he’s only got his horns stuck a couple of times. He can get out of a fence if he wants to but mostly stays home. He does stink when in rut though as he’s an intact buck. I’d avoid the dwarf or pygmy goats. They are the devil.
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I think it could work, with a horse in the pasture that could also be a deterrent to predators, certainly my appy would attack any canine who came in his paddock.
Sheep are fun, I don’t think they are more trouble than horses, I think they just get up to different trouble, which surprises horse people.
I had goats too, just be ready to be the most interesting thing on the farm, I always had an entourage when I was outside.
They do love roses and fruit trees, though. So the blackberries will be goners
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These are my little knee-highs lol Madge and Maudeen. They are so sweet and easy, both does about 4 years old. They are smart and mostly compliant and too lazy to jump on a car. They cruise around here but since we have deer problems the goats are already fenced out of the important stuff. They have their own pen that is very secure (both in and out) but in the summer we let them run around with the horses when we’re home.
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I preface this with…… I love my goats and enjoy them oh so much. I worked with sheep but I preferred my goats.
They are super easy to deal with and easy to train. Mine have about 10 different commands that they follow and are smart enough to know their home. They can get out and all they do is come visit me at the house.
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