Tuesday 3 April 2012

sheep tagging - a welfare issue?

I have already stated in a past posting that by law all sheep have to be tagged. Those destined for pies just require one tag, those destined to remain on farms as breeding sheep require two tags.

If a sheep is found to have lost a tag the farmer is required by law to replace that missing tag or pair of tags.

Now I have my ears pierced and over the years I have lost many earrings out of my lugs. Pull your jumper off over your head and hey presto! gone, left with just one lug ring, t'other never to be seen again, mainly due to the fact that it generally takes me days to realise I lost one in the first place.

So sheep don't pull their jumpers off over their heads so they won't have the problem I experience, they just have other problems. Sheep have wool and it can indeed get tangled on their person, they also like to stick their heads through wire fences, they like to feed at hay hecks, they traipse through heather, lie down in dense undergrowth, wander into woods, rub up against things including each other, especially when in the sheep pens. They have a hundred and one ways of managing to lose a tag. They also have the trouble of flies, which irritate them, make them flick their ears around, scrub their heads, kick up with their hind feet - anything to dislodge the pests.
Posted by Picasa
I Know! I take some strange photos! The above is an ear, a sheeps ear no less, a normal ear, a healthy ear, it is the last one you're likely to see on this posting - be warned!
Posted by Picasa
Blackfaced sheep are not meant to have droopy, floppy lugs. Their ears ought to be pinned back behind their horns and pointing skywards not drooping forwards.
Posted by Picasa
This poor soul had little option but to hang a lug. Having been tagged a year previous she had been doing well, until there was some warm steamy weather and headflies became a problem, her incessant flicking of her ears against her horn would cause the skin to break, the headfly would then get excited to a feverish pitch, she would flick her ear even more and before she knew it she had a very sore and very infected ear.
Posted by Picasa
This sheep had also been bothered by flies, the tag is actually still in the ear, just encrusted with infection.
Posted by Picasa
Was this sheep luckier? She has lost her tag, it has ripped her ear, probably she caught it on something and tore it away from the flesh of her lug which it was pierced through. Unlike the earrings which I wear, which have a removable back her earring is meant to be a permanent fixture, it won't come to pieces, it will come out in one whole piece - torn or ripped out, She had obviously had an infection as well, the hair missing off her ear says it all, although healing up nicely she will have had a rough time of it.
Posted by Picasa
Another who had lost a tag, healing nicely?
Posted by Picasa
Upon closer inspection there is obviously still a fair amount of infection in the ear, I wouldn't like my lugs to be oozing puss like that.
Posted by Picasa
Posted by Picasa
Who would be a sheep hey?

So? Is tagging a welfare issue? It most definitely can be, and unfortunately it is the responsibility of the farmer not those who lay down the regulations to ensure their sheep don't suffer from welfare issues.

When noises have been made it is the farmer who is told he doesn't do the job correctly, it is the farmer who foots the bills for the antibiotics and replacement tags, it is the sheep which can suffer and once ears are healed find themselves having a replacement tag re inserted into their ears, they will have no peace from the dreaded tag until they are dead, and even then, they must have a tag in their ear for the dead cart to collect them.
Posted by Picasa
Posted by Picasa
Maybe our sheep ought to join the maasai people?

3 comments:

Dr Clive Dalton said...

Great blog Shep. Tagging is certainly a big welfare issue and certainly not enough research has been done to find the best solutions. Some of those poor critters in your great pics must have been going through hell.

There's a need for manufacturers to research and make better tags for sheep. We have some very good sheep tags in New Zealand.

The main problem is to make the hole for the tag in the right place in the ear, which is not always easy to find when sheep are bucking and head shaking.

The other good idea is to make the holes on one nice dry fine day and let them heal for about a week, then go back and put the tags in. Then you can see if there are any problems with infections.

The sheep certainly never kick when you put the tag through the hole!

But then who has time to do all that? My recent experience of tagging is that the extra time is well worth it when it comes to tag retention.

Tarset Shepherd said...

Thanks Clive, it is a problem and a lack of staff and logistics of hill farming don't help with the solutions. I know of people who have used disinfectants, pre punched holes and basically everything you could think of and still they have problems. But then, it will be us who are to blame not the powers to be for enforcing the regulations.

Dr Clive Dalton said...

'Just So'as a noted North Tyne character used to say to everything! We called him 'Jacky Just'!

The bureaucrats in Brussels who design the rules will not even know which end of a sheep the ears are on!

Keep stirring - and let's hope somebody who drives a desk in London or Brussels sees your photos!