Do you have adequate shelter?
Winter is nearly here and layers of clothing are being added with each passing month. It’s timely to stop and consider if our livestock have sufficient access to shelter – to meet both their health and welfare needs.
Three questions
- Do your lambing and calving paddocks have adequate shelter for new born livestock, particularly during the worst of early spring weather?
- On any given day, can your livestock avoid heat stress by seeking out shade?
- If, despite your best efforts, livestock do suffer as a result of bad whether, do you have a strategy to minimise the impact on them?
You need to answer “yes” to each of these questions, because they cover off your obligations under the Animal Welfare Act 1999. In fact, they are the minimum standards required.B+LNZ has a great fact sheet on shelter. It includes information on heat balance in grazing livestock, new born lambs’ needs, the role of wind chill, the impact of bad weather on mature animals, and planting trees as shelter.
https://beeflambnz.com/knowledge-hub/PDF/FS174-shelter
Article sourced from www.beeflambnz.comDate Added: Wednesday, 5th June 2019
