Livestock Guardian Dogs !!!! We have PUPPIES! We have had many sheep losses the last few years. The mountains and wilderness areas that surround our valley are home to mountain lions (cougars), bears, coyotes and soon to be wolves. Bobbi, my neighbor across the road, has lost 4 feeder calves this summer to lions. The kill sights are bringing in black bears to scavenge. We tried an adopted Anatolian LGD but he killed and ate 2 lambs so he had to go. I just purchased 2- 7 week old puppies. They are a Maremma X Great Pyrenees blend. They are tiny, little fluff balls. Are they going to grow up and take on a 135 pound mountain lion?? Their mom and dad did! Mom got torn pretty bad but the goats they were guarding were unharmed
Our puppies will soon look like these 8 month old siblings.
2 comments:
I've heard, but not experienced it, that a LGD will eat stillborn livestock to keep predators from coming closer. A friend thought their pyr had killed and eaten a goat baby, but it turned out that it was stillborn. Not sure if this would also be the case with livestock young that dies from other causes in the field, though. I have a great pyr guarding my free-range chickens and he does a marvelous job with the ones who stay close enough to him. the guineas consistently go too far away for him to be effective.
Hello! Found your blog through the soil and health listserv. Just wanted to add that I visited a farm in the high mountains of NM, and the farmer couldn't say enough about her two Pyrenees mountain dogs who roamed the night and guarded her sheep and cattle from mountain lions and other predators. While the dogs slept in the day, she had a donkey with every flock/herd, and she said they did an excellent job guarding. She saw one sneak up on a coyote and stomp on him to death. Just thought I'd share!
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