Stoats Kill Lambs.

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 19209, 15 September 1934, Page 3

Stoats Kill Lambs.

HAWKE'S BAY LOSSES. NEW MENACE FOR FARMERS. (Special to Star). NAPIER, Sept. 15. Stoats are suspected of being the •cause of Avholesale mortality among lambs. On a well-known Hawke's Bay farming property over 60 lambs •have been killed within the past week in circumstances which suggest ravages of some member of the rodent family. The property is one on which ■last year there were heavy losses ;among lambs through attacks by seagulls, but the new menace is responsible for much heavier mortality, and is moreover one which is presenting greater difficulty in efforts to combat it.

Although a pack of rabbit dogs has been employed on the property during the past week in an endeavour to discover the sleeping quarters of the stoats, no traces have yet been found. Equally unsuccessful has been the practice of maintaining a watch on paddocks at night, although the fact that there were men in the vicinity undoubtedly made tho attackers more wary and reduced the death roll, as is indicated by tho fact that the heaviest mortality occurred last Tuesday night when, owing to driving rain and bitterly cold conditions, the watch was lifted early in the evening. In the morning 13 carcases were found lying about the paddocks. In every case blood on the wool of the lambs near the necks indicated the presence of tiny holes, evidently inflicted by the razor-like teeth of a stoat or siniilar animal. The fact that the lambs killed were in the great majority of cases fully a month old and in good healthy condition is evidence of the strength