A ROPLEY-based farmer, who has been plagued by dog attacks on his sheep, has invested in a pair of alpacas to guard a flock on the South Downs.

Last March, Gordon Wyeth was appalled to lose 116 sheep in the worst dog attack in living memory on land at East Dean, near Chichester, in West Sussex. Now, Gordon’s professional shepherd, Lizzie Rough, has introduced Tom and Jerry, two male alpacas, into a 50-acre field at the same site at Farbridge, East Dean, to guard 500 ewes that are due to lamb this week.

A popular footpath runs through the field, linking The Trundle with The Centurion Way, and signs have been erected to warn dog walkers to keep dogs on leads when walking through the field.

Mr Wyeth says: “The reason why we have these alpacas now is because of what happened here a year ago. We want to avoid dog attacks on sheep at all costs. We have scanned ewes from this flock to check their pregnancy and we estimate that we have already lost more than £4,000 in lost lambs. We believe these losses are largely down to dogs worrying our sheep.”

Lizzie Rough, who bought the camelids from a Devon sheep farmer through social media, said: “We often find dogs bounding up among the sheep and the owner some distance behind. We can’t be here all the time looking after the sheep, so now we have Tom and Jerry to guard them.

“These alpacas are fairly shy of people but they are alert to predators. If a dog is on a lead, then they’re unlikely to approach but they may well chase loose dogs that they see as a threat to the flock.”

She adds: “Even if a dog is not biting sheep it may be scaring them by running among them when they’re pregnant and then they can lose their lambs.

“The lambing results for this particular flock are expected to be poor. It’s not simply an animal welfare issue – dog attacks hit farmers’ livelihoods. Ultimately this affects my job and jobs for other young people in sheep farming.”