‘I am considering giving up farming my own sheep’ - farmer furious after 20 new-born lambs savaged by dog

The shepherd said he expected the lambs were likely targeted after he said it looked like the dog ‘came back for more’.

Some lambs as young as one-day old escaped through the electric fence and into the nearby woods, but Mr Edwards found them dead the next morning after being ‘starved and freezing’.

“They are babies,” he said. “They are not supposed to be running for their lives.”

Previous incidents had also seen Mr Edwards find a dead ewe in a kissing gate before also discovering a dog lead next to a decimated ewe.

He said his majority Exlana ewes had a 'fairly high genetic value'.

“It was strange because there was not a single lamb with no bite that was not dead,” he added.

Wasted

“It had not tucked into a single ewe, but just gone lamb to lamb.

“It is getting to the point where I am considering giving up farming my own sheep because of the idiots down here with their pets.”

Mr Edwards said he had never known a single dog walker own up, but had also yesterday bumped into two dog walkers with their dogs off a lead.

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“People let their dogs run everywhere and then just go home,” he added.

“The ewes often deliver the lambs on their own and it is such a pleasure watching them be so maternal.

“But all of that is wasted as soon as some selfish person turns up with their dog off the lead.”