Information on working terriers, dogs, natural history, hunting, and the environment, with occasional political commentary as I see fit. This web log is associated with the Terrierman.com web site.
Wednesday, January 18, 2023
The Greatest Threat to Sheep
THE GREATEST THREAT TO SHEEP, other than bad weather, neonatal mortality, poor mothering, and poor feed, is DOGS. Fox predation of sheep and lambs barely registers.
Fox are much too small to take down a healthy full-grown sheep, and they don't pack hunt here. Dogs can be shot on the spot in my area when they worry livestock. It's an incredibly difficult behavior to mitigate via training and behavior modification. If the owner won't contain their dogs, it can be a death sentence. Once they get a taste for it, often the only answer is to shoot or euthanize. I've seen the aftermath of two dogs having their fun in a sheep pen, and it looks just like that photo. Farmer had to shoot one in the pen when it came back. The other dog was found shot by the side of the road, no one knows who got that one. If word gets out your dog is a sheep killer here, my advice would be to move, hopefully back to the city.
2 comments:
Fox are much too small to take down a healthy full-grown sheep, and they don't pack hunt here. Dogs can be shot on the spot in my area when they worry livestock. It's an incredibly difficult behavior to mitigate via training and behavior modification. If the owner won't contain their dogs, it can be a death sentence. Once they get a taste for it, often the only answer is to shoot or euthanize. I've seen the aftermath of two dogs having their fun in a sheep pen, and it looks just like that photo. Farmer had to shoot one in the pen when it came back. The other dog was found shot by the side of the road, no one knows who got that one. If word gets out your dog is a sheep killer here, my advice would be to move, hopefully back to the city.
I'm on several agriculture sites and stray dogs kill more livestock than all other predators combined.
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