CLIMATE CHANGE

Shelter and Shelters

Appearances suggest that, in the main, sheep farmers have not - to date - much concerned themselves with providing dedicated protection or shelter from the weather to sheep when they are outdoors. Presumably this has come from a viewpoint of seeing sheep - as well being quite able to look after themselves in terms of weather protection - as being largely able to withstand weather elements, because of hardiness, and because their fleece gives them some protection against wet, cold, and heat.

Of the shelter which sheep do have, or find, outdoors, some is a feature of nature appropriated for shelter - a well-branched tree, a human-planted hedge giving some cover beneath, a rock outcrop possessed of an overhang. Some is another type of appropriated item - a human-built wall offering a modicum of shade, a human-built building that is no longer used for the purpose for which it was originally constructed and which is empty and which has an open doorway. An occasional deliberately installed item is a shelter belt of trees, planted with the aim to protect sheep from wind.

From the sheep welfare perspective, very concerning indeed are fields to hold sheep that are formed from land which has merely been fenced, from wire or timber, and which have no shelter. Similarly, concerning are any open areas of land which sheep are placed on that have no shelter of any kind.

It is, of course, not only when they are at pasture that sheep will always require to have available good shelter from bad weather - and now, moreover, that that weather can often be extreme. Whenever sheep are outdoors they will be vulnerable to weather elements. So, when outdoors at shows, at sales that happen outdoors, at outdoor events, sheep will need to be provided as necessary with temporary shelter, and which has excellent ventilation, such as open-sided tents and gazebos.

Now that there are frequent appearances across the globe of extreme weather - great heat (with the drought associated), copious rain, gales of wind, etc. - what has always been desirable from the perspective of sheep welfare, ensuring that every outdoors place of sheep has shelter, has become an imperative. Sheep cannot now be placed outdoors and with exposure to weather without having access to appropriate shelter.

With weather much more prone to being intense, dangerous, and harmful, sheep farmers need to give fast attention to, as a matter of course, making shelter - natural or human-made - available to sheep and lambs when they are in all outdoors situations.

17th September 2026