What decapitates 3-4 week old lambs?

[CarlW]

It’s a badger with possible help from foxes @roryr.

Sorry to approach this in my supposedly humorous way, but I have found it amusing to read all the suggestions of escaped exotics from far flung continents, and more besides.

Now it’s been a fair while since I’ve been involved with this kind of thing, I.e worrying about predators, primarily because we don’t have any here other than (rarely) dogs. The lambs that we lose we expect to get cleaned up by the pigs within a matter of hours. I can stand on a saddle and look in two directions and watch pigs wandering around between ewes and newborn lambs, hoovering up afterbirth and the dead. A breached ewe might well be in trouble and potentially disappear in her entirety should things go wrong. But I have never witnessed a pig eating a dying lamb or ewe. That isn’t to say it doesn’t happen. Some farmers here have been able to prove that a particularly aggressive boar is killing live lambs, but they almost always leave the skin of live lambs behind, and we don’t see that here. A significant amount of money has gone into fencing the lowland flats to keep pigs out from paddocks carrying ewes scanned as having twins or triplets.

I have watched badgers many times as a kid bringing carrion back to the sett. Headless lambs in the paddock were almost always badgers, as they targeted the brains. It’s a very tell tale and characteristic carcass. A hungry badger might just keep going on down the spine, else it would move on and the scavenging fox would take over. No lynx, panthers, wolves or escaped honey badgers required... but I wouldn’t get too excited about there being other animals involved just because you’ve got one lamb eaten from the other end.

I would spend some time searching the surrounding copses for a badger sett, then sit up and observe. I’d bet my left nut that you’ve got a big hungry sow nearby as she’ll have dropped her cubs 2-3 months ago and they will be ready to leave home shortly. Shouldn’t be too hard to track down.

As a certain Kiwi Brit would say, that's complete b0ll0cks, Dodgy.

A f'kin' Komodo Dragon ate it! You can tell by the shape of the bite. You got that?

 

[User00033]

Nah... It’s...

 

[royr]

Afternoon Gents
Thank you for your latest replies.
Having time on my hands, sitting here, re-reading your replies/suggestions, I'm now more than a little worried for my own safety!!

Suggestion of Aliens, Beasts or Dragons from other Worlds/ Galaxy's has me realising I'm under-gunned out in the field with my .223.

SO,
My Firearms Variation request is on its way to the FEO:-
1. PLASMA CANNON – Lite model..

2. WOOKIE BOWCASTER. Variant 2..

3. VARON-T DISRUPTOR, synthetic stock...

4. TUSKEN RAIDER RIFLE. Grade 5...

5. Matched Pair of the JEM'HADAR PISTOLS, with silver inlaid Elk Antler Grips, for any close quarter encounter.

This should be sufficient fire power, or have I missed something?
Regards
RoyR

 

[sh1kar]

Photon torpedo Although not sure if you need an Enterprise to mount it on......

S

 

[royr]

Sh 1 kar. Thank you.

Photon Torpedo’s. Hmmm! - - too heavy to carry? - Could possibly fit a ball-bearing rotary table onto my Discovery Roof Rack, lock it down into a forward firing position for travel, and attach the Photon Launcher Tubes to that?
Open Iron Sights? - Or, 4K View Screen 2 - 5,000,000 x 300?

Damn No!, unfortunately it’s a non-starter; just calculated weight, I’d have to uprate ALL the Disco’ springs, tyres and brakes, very expensive, but worst aspect is height, having to re-route avoiding Low Bridges.

Excellent suggestion though!

Regards
RoyR - (With too much time on his hands)

 

[Magnificent 7]

My guess would be rogue badger we had a farmer losing lambs took the hounds to the lambing field early morning hounds could make nothing turned out to be a Badger

 

[VSS]

My guess would be rogue badger we had a farmer losing lambs took the hounds to the lambing field early morning hounds could make nothing turned out to be a Badger

Nothing "rogue" about it. Mostly lambs die from causes other than predation, and are then eaten. This is fairly normal behaviour for a badger.
Typically, lambing time losses may run at around 15%, including still births and so on. Actual predation of live lambs would represent very small proportion of that total, although a much higher proportion would give the appearance of having been predated. Hence why foxes, badgers etc are generally blamed for the death.

 

[norma 308]

It could be any of the above-mentioned animals, I've seen calve carcasses broken up in a night by both fox and badger. Three to four-week-old lambs don't present much of a problem to any carnivore.

yep badgers my bet seen what they do to a lost fallow carcass overnight they love lambs heads too

 

[CarlW]

Nothing "rogue" about it. Mostly lambs die from causes other than predation, and are then eaten. This is fairly normal behaviour for a badger.
Typically, lambing time losses may run at around 15%, including still births and so on. Actual predation of live lambs would represent very small proportion of that total, although a much higher proportion would give the appearance of having been predated. Hence why foxes, badgers etc are generally blamed for the death.

You sure it's not a Komodo, Tim...? A rogue one, perhaps...?

 

[VSS]

You sure it's not a Komodo, Tim...? A rogue one, perhaps...?

Well I guess a lot of sheep farmers I know would happily accept komodo dragons as being the cause of their unexplained lamb losses, rather than admit that poor flock management might be at the root of their problem.

 

[royr]

Evening Gents,
Thank You.
Just a piece of information regarding ratios of badgers to foxes that I've observed on the grounds I have permissions on in my Kent area.
On one farm where I dispatched 3 foxes in 2 sheep fields, that same night, 23.00hrs, I did a spot check with thermal spotter and counted 18 badgers = 6:1 ratio. This was the highest ratio I've encountered.

On the farmland where these lamb killings have occurred I've observed the ratio is at least 3:1 - still too high IMO; I've never seen/spotted any hedgehogs here.

Rogue badger or badgers, now appear most likely from the info' you have all given me.
With badger cubs now spotted feeding with parents, I hope none of the cubs learn of this lamb killing tactic.
Farmer has asked me to attend whenever I can, so will be going there again tonight.

Regards
RoyR

 

[old keeper]

Have you not had a cull in your area? RoyR

 

[VSS]

I reckon I must be a "rogue" person, because I eat dead animals as nature intended me to...

 

[landkeeper]

I reckon I must be a "rogue" person, because I eat dead animals as nature intended me to...

Head first ??