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    The use of sheepdogs in sheep production in southeastern Brazil


    de Andrade Moral, Rafael and Azevedo, Fernanco C.C. and Verdade, Luciano M. (2016) The use of sheepdogs in sheep production in southeastern Brazil. Pastoralism Research, Policy and Practice, 6 (18).

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    Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13570-016-0065-x


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    Abstract

    This study assessed the economic value of using sheepdogs as livestock guardians in southeastern Brazil by implementing a semi-structured interview format divided into four main categories: maintenance costs of sheep production, selling prices of carcasses, annual rate of depredation, and sheepdog acquisition and maintenance costs. According to our results, producers perceive the “unproductive” costs of sheepdogs similarly to the way they view taxes. However, management using sheepdogs as herd guardians tends to be most profitable for herds above 483 head from the fourth year on, being possibly more stable and predictable over time. In contrast, management without sheepdogs shows stochastic dynamics with occasional, though unpredictable, episodes of sheep depredation. This means that sheep farmers follow a cyclical decision strategy, which basically depends on the purchase price of the sheepdog.

    Item Type: Article
    Additional Information: © This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
    Keywords: Ecological management; Livestock depredation; Neotropics; Puma; Sheep industry;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering > Mathematics and Statistics
    Item ID: 10005
    Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13570-016-0065-x
    Depositing User: Rafael de Andrade Moral
    Date Deposited: 25 Sep 2018 15:46
    Journal or Publication Title: Pastoralism Research, Policy and Practice
    Publisher: Springer Open
    Refereed: Yes
    URI:
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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