2006/S05 - Alpacas as lamb protectors

Summary

In addition to being a major animal welfare concern, fox attacks on newborn lambs cause substantial economic losses to the sheep industry (Mahoney & Charry 2005). Australia-wide, foxes cost around $230m in livestock and biodiversity losses, and in control methods (Fleming et al. 2006). Lamb producers across Australia are keen to determine the effectiveness of using guard animals, such as alpacas, to reduce fox predation of lambs. Hence, the Forward Thinking Sheep Group was formed to undertake a series of on-farm trials to investigate the effects of using alpacas as lamb guardians.