Animal Health & Welfare

The following are procedures and situations that sheep find aversive. Reducing the fearfulness of sheep when handled can increase handling efficiency, reduce the incidence of injuries, improve growth rate and improve welfare.

 

• Social isolation - keep a group of sheep together; if one animal goes the wrong way it may be easier to let several sheep go with it and bring them all back rather than attempt to move a single sheep (except a lactating ewe with her lambs). If a single animal needs to be kept in, then consider keeping 'buddy' sheep with them to prevent the stress of isolation.
• Capture and inversion - although there are occasions when sheep need to be caught and turned over, these should be kept to a minimum as sheep find this unpleasant.
• Sheep have a good ability to learn to associate a particular place with an unpleasant experience. Returning there again may be stressful.
• Shouting, banging, dogs barking and excessive noise will all cause unnecessary stress and can actually reduce the efficiency of handling, rather than improve it.
• Although sheep can be readily worked with dogs, it must be appreciated that they do find the presence of dogs stressful. Using well trained dogs that do not harry, nip or bite sheep will help reduce this stress.
• Sheep have a good ability to recognise individual people (and dogs!), so they may feel greater stress in the presence of someone who has had an unpleasant interaction with them than, for example, the person who normally feeds them.
• New experiences - new places, mixing with new individuals, unusual objects etc. can all cause stress initially. Aim to reduce the number of new events that occur simultaneously.
• Many management actions are inherently stressful - clipping, dipping, ear tagging, gathering, moving, foot trimming, weaning to name but a few. Ensuring that these are carried out as sympathetically as possible will reduce the amount of stress sheep experience. Avoid adding additional stresses to these management actions such as novelty or rough, pressured handling.

Some of the principles on handling discussed under the beef cattle health and welfare section on this site and under a specific KT initiative on the design of beef cattle handling facilities are also relevant for sheep.  The links to the right will take you to the relevant pages.