Transitory Night Penning of Sheep and Cattle for Predation Protection: Costs, Benefits, and Challenges

The restoration of native predators across rangelands of the western U.S. has created new challenges for ranchers in the form of direct and indirect predation impacts. We present two case studies, one with sheep and one with cattle, where ranchers responded to increased predation risk by incorporating transitory night penning as a component of their managed grazing on public lands.

For both sheep and cattle, transitory night penning was a technique that reduced predation risk and also aided the goal of managed grazing.

Factors important to transitory night penning include skilled and well-trained personnel, livestock trained to enter and relax in night pens, guard dogs working in conjunction with herders, and occasional use of predator deterrents.

Challenges of transitory night penning include increased logistical and infrastructure demands, higher equipment and labor costs, learning new livestock-handling and training procedures, negative ecological impacts at night-penning sites, and policy/culture discouraging concentrations of livestock on public land.

Benefits of transitory night penning include a reduction in predator-related mortality, positive ecological impacts, an increase in livestock performance, and a reduction in stress for personnel and guard dogs.