Are Sheep and Goats the Same? What are the Differences?

When adding small livestock to your homestead, you may find yourself asking are sheep and goats the same? Let’s compare and contrast the two animals to help you decide which one is right for you.

Are Sheep and Goats the Same?

In a word: no, I cannot say that sheep and goats are the same. 

My personal opinion is that sheep are far easier to keep, and an overall better animal to raise on the homestead. I’ll detail my personal experiences with each later.

I’m not here to convince you to keep sheep over goats; however, I can show you some of the main differences and similarities between them. You can decide which animal (or if both animals) will work best for you and your small farm.

Different Diets

The nutritional needs of goats and sheep are similar. The main difference being what they eat, not necessarily the nutrient content.

Goats are browsing animals, thriving on scrubby bushes and plants. They will absolutely eat grasses too, but their first choice will be to browse. This makes them great at clearing brush in wooded spaces for the homesteader. They really need the woody roughage for proper rumen function.

Sheep, on the other hand, will do best on a diet of half browse and have grazing. They like broad-leafed weeds and grasses, but they will also nibble at the scrubland if they have access to it. Interestingly, sheep can thrive on 100% grassland as well.

Minerals and Copper

It is extremely imperative to put loose minerals out for all ruminate animals. Copper is so important to goats because intestinal parasites can’t live in its presence, and goats (in our area at least) seem to be more prone to parasite infection than sheep.

Both domestic sheep and goats need minerals for overall health, but sheep are prone to copper toxicity. For this reason, I recommend offering a mineral mix formulated for your sheep.

A quality goat mineral supplement will include high copper and should be kept away from sheep.

Some breeds of sheep can tolerate more copper than others. It has been my experience that Katahdin sheep don’t seem to have a problem with high copper blends of minerals. We put out the same mix of high quality minerals for our sheep and cows, and we’ve never had a copper overdose.

​High quality minerals can be expensive. A trick we use is to place their mineral feeders as far away from their clean water as possible. This will keep them from eating up all of the minerals at once.

Are Sheep and Goats the Same When it Comes to Personality

Sheep tend to stay with their herd and run together in the field. Goats, are often more curious animals and will gladly wander away from their herd in order to check out whatever perks their curiosity.

 Ask any goat owner if they’ve had difficulty with their goats getting out. They will jump fences, squeeze through gates, or find any means they possibly can to escape. Sheep that are well-fed tend to happily stay in whatever space you give them.

Milk or Meat

​Traditionally, many cultures around the world use goats and sheep for meat. Only here, in The United States, is goat meat somewhat taboo; however, lamb is treated as a delicacy. Some areas are selling lamb for as much as $20 per pound.

Homesteaders can use both animals for milk too. Finding dairy goats is much easier than finding dairy sheep.

Their Tails

One of the easiest ways to tell the difference between a goat or a sheep is to look at their tails. Goats have short tails that will stand up like a flag, while sheep tails hang downwards, somewhat like a dog. 

Sometimes, sheep farmers dock the tails of their sheep for sanitary reasons. We don’t find this to be necessary. 

Coats

You may think that all sheep have wool coats. Guess what? There are some different species of “hair sheep,” and they shed their coats annually. Their hair is coarse and grows thick for the winter before shedding out in spring. This makes them appealing as low maintenance animals for homesteaders.

Additionally, hair sheep have less lanolin in their skin than traditional wool sheep. Lanolin is what causes that strong gamey flavor in lamb meat that many people don’t like. The hair sheep breeds bring a wonderfully mild, sweet flavor in their meat.

Of course, there are wool sheep too, and they do need to be shorn each year. The benefit of sheering is that you get the wool, which can be sent for cleaning and/or spinning and returned for your own use.

Goats simply have a hair coat. The only clipping that needs to be done with goats is if you’re going to show them, or sometimes milking goat udders need a trim to keep them clean.

Mouths

Sheep have a groove in their top lip. This is different from a goat’s solid upper lip. Perhaps this is because sheep benefit from grazing more than goats. They also tend to eat grasses and plants closer to the root. This can easily lead to overgrazing a space given to sheep, and strict pasture management should be in place.

Their Horns

​Both male and female goats usually have horns that grow in soon after birth, but there are a few hornless goat breeds out there. We call these animals “polled.” There seems to be a correlation between polled goats and infertility.

Alternatively, most sheep breeds are polled, and the sheep that do have horns are usually rams.

Goat horns can grow straight up or curve backwards while sheep horns curl around the sides of their heads. Goats’ horns are used as protective spears during a fight. For sheep, their horns are used as protective shields for their heads, as they ram one another during a fight.

Horns can be a hazard for the homesteader. Animals can easily gore one another or their caretaking humans out of aggression or by accident. Horned animals can easily harm themselves by getting their horns stuck in fences, trees, or farm equipment.

Odor 

Have you ever in your life been around a male goat, a buck, during the rut? They have an odor that can only be matched by the skunk. It’s a lingering odor that comes from their own urine, in which they cover themselves to impress the females, the does. 

Not only that, but they have scent glands at the base of their horns that secrete a strong odor. Rams, on the other hand, have a milder scent gland on the sides of their heads, behind their eyes. They also have a scent gland on their hind legs, but the odor isn’t particularly strong to our noses.

Both sheep and goats have more scent glands between their hooves. Again, this is used for reproductive communication through pheromones in the goat or sheep herd.

Reproduction – Are Sheep and Goats the Same?

Both sheep and goats have a similar mating season, although female sheep have a slightly shorter estrus cycle. Both sheep and goats’ breeding seasons are dictated by the length of days. They tend to ramp up in late summer/early fall, and have the same gestation of about five months. This brings forth early Spring babies.

Female sheep can successfully breed at six months old and be good mothers at lambing. Female goats, however, are usually a year old before handlers breed them for a better shot at good motherhood instincts and milk production.

Are Sheep and Goats From the Same Family?

While goats and sheep appear to be closely related animal species, they have more differences than one would think. 

They are both in the bovidae family and caprina subfamily. These are ruminant mammals with cloven hooves.

From there, we can see differences in biology and scientific names. Sheep have 54 chromosomes and goats have 60. Domesticated goats’ family genus species name is Capra aegragrus hircus. Sheep family genus species name is Capra ovis aries.

​Can sheep and goats live together?

Yes. Many farmers and homesteaders house their goats and sheep together. They have similar requirements, with the most notable difference being the copper intake. As already stated, goats need far more copper than sheep.

​Can goats and sheep be mated together?

Goats and sheep have rarely been mated together, and fetuses typically meet their demise before birth. It is rare for offspring to make it to full gestation, and even then they are usually stillborn. Perhaps the fact that they cannot be easily bred together answers the question are sheep and goats the same?

As rare as it is to hear of a hybrid goat-sheep offspring, it does have its own designation. The geep of course.

Because geeps are such a rare breed, there is very little study completed with them to determine fertility or other possible medical issues.

My Personal Experience with Goats and Sheep

​This is purely my subjective opinion based upon my own experiences, and not intended to cause an uproar with my goat community friends. (I know you love your babies.)

Sheep are better.

I’ll add this bit of personal farm information, and then you can do with it what you will. I’ve kept a few different breeds of goats for a couple of years at a time, twice. I’ve kept only the Katahdin breed of sheep for the last three years. This is not a long time for either, but it’s my personal experience nonetheless.

Maybe it’s the Katahdin, I’m not sure, but the comparing experiences has me believing that sheep are far better.

Sheep have been easier for me to keep, to feed, to pasture, and more. Let me elaborate.

Maintaining Their Hooves

​Sheep and goats both have cloven hooves that need regular trimming. 

With goats, I had to do this every four weeks without fail, or the goats would develop foot problems. We had a repeated problem with thrush if I allowed them to overgrow by even a little time. 

With sheep, I only need to trim their hooves every 8-12 months, depending on their diet. If I add grains into their diet, then their hooves grow faster and need trimming sooner. Even when I finally do get around to trimming their feet, they aren’t nearly as grown as goats are when they need the same kind of maintenance.

Parasite Resistance

I cannot tell you how many times I had to use chemical dewormers on goats. Even after giving them copper boluses multiple times, changing their pastures, and providing plenty of loose minerals, goats in Florida just have to be routinely dewormed.

Many goat owners put their goats on a deworming schedule every 8 weeks just to be sure they don’t face a parasitic problem. This causes parasite evolution to resist such dewormers.

​I’ve had to deworm one sheep once when we first arrived at this property (she came with the property). Since then, I’ve dewormed one other sheep, a new mother who I’d kept on the same pasture for too long during a wet winter.

That’s it. Two different ewes, two different times, in three years.

Coccidiosis

​All young ruminants are threatened by coccidia, a bacterial infection. According to my livestock veterinarian, there are literally thousands of strands of naturally occurring coccidia that could plague a farm.

I’ve lost young goats to coccidia a couple of times. It seemed that by the time they presented with symptoms, they were on death’s door.

I’ve not lost a young lamb to coccidia, yet. I know it’s a possibility, but so far, we haven’t had the problem.

We did acquire a lamb from another farm that didn’t get colostrum, and he died of joint ill where bacterial infection enters the body and sets in the joints. That could have been coccidia, but the conversation with our vet leads us to believe otherwise. He was just never in really good health because he didn’t receive colostrum at birth.

​Diet and Weight

​The goats that we’ve had needed grain and expensive hay to maintain a healthy weight. This was true for both dairy and meat goats.

Our Katahdin sheep do really well without grain. They have sparse grass through our winters, yet they stay fat. They occasionally get limited bites of grain when we keep them together with our cows, but it’s not a part of their regular diet.

Don’t Be Discouraged

If goats are a part of your homestead dream, don’t be discouraged. I want you to research more, I’m sure there’s plenty of rebuttal to my experiences with goats and sheep out there in the blogosphere. 

Take heart. Now that we’ve answered the question are sheep and goats the same, find yourself a mentor, and go after it. Set yourself up for homestead success with the animals of your choosing, whether it be a small herd of goats or a flock of sheep.​

Concluding Are Sheep and Goats the Same?

After reading through this information, what do you think? Are sheep and goats the same? While they may serve similar purposes of grazing, meat, and milk, you can see there are some significant differences between the two. Both can be a great choice.

I hope that comparing and contrasting the two will help you decide which is right for your homestead.

Happy homesteading!

​Donna and her family have been homesteading for most of their 20+  years together in some shape or fashion. She currently lives on their 20 acre farm where they grow as much food as possible. What started as a just a few laying hens, has grown into large gardens, pastured poultry, pork, and lamb. They are continuously evolving their small farm to not suit their family’s needs, but also providing to their local community. Donna’s favorite part of the family farm is her self-built micro-dairy, where she gets to love on dairy cows while serving her local community. Milking, cheesemaking, and processing dairy have become the soul of their homestead and the center of their farm.

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