The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Slimjim on April 16, 2014, 08:26:24 am
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Following on from the post about Cade lambs and protecting from foxes and badgers, I wondered what people do with lambs with their mums to minimise the risk. Mine are out in the day, but in a fox proof shed at night. How old should they be before they can stay out at night?
Thank you for your thoughts.
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Ours are out at night with their mums after 48 hours, sometimes 24 if it's a single lamb. We have foxes here but :fc: we haven't had any problems. I've seen our ewes chase the dogs - unless foxes work as a pack (one to distract and one to take the lamb) I don't reckon on their chances. The lambs tend to sleep together as a group with a group of ewes nearby.
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We tend to have a good go at pre-emptively solving the problem, before any issues occur.
With good management, we don't have many problems.
Apart from that, we tend to just make sure that the lambs are active, and lively enough and then put them out in good sized mobs as soon as we can get them out of the sheds (we need the space!). In a good sized group, there are a good number of eyes and ears to watch out for charlie.
As said, most of the time a fox will pick off a lone lamb, that's either got separated from the rest, or is ill.
Having said that, you DO get problem foxes, which will take lambs until a lot older than most folk think. We know this because of finding the carcasses at / down the earths, and also one year a local lad shot a big dog fox as it was trying to drag a lumper lamb off (lamb was half alive still).
However, for the most part, there is enough afterbirth etc around to make for a far easier meal for the fox than a lamb.
Still, doesn't hurt to do some fox control pre-lambing. That's a major part of our end of winter work, on the hill farms around the place.