Predator control

[dalek]

Hello its me again the English bloke. We dont get alot of trouble with predators over here that is as long as you dont farm near a populated area then you can get dimestic dogs worrying your sheep also the odd weakly lamb my get picked up by the odd fox.but i gather you get bother with coyotes etc.someone told me you can use guard dogs and even a donkey to deter can you tell me how you introduce the dogs to the sheep and would feching the flock closer to the yard help deter

[pandiana]

I cannot speak personally of a guard dog experience but do have a donkey. Elvis, the donkey, does absolutely nothing to pay for his keep, let alone defend the sheep. Unless you buy an animal with a resume I would avoid any so called guard animal. Some have it and some don't. I have a neighbor with a very good Llama that works well.

[cakadu]

Hello to you again. We have had both a guard dog and currently have a llama protecting the sheep.

The livestock guardian dogs, of which there are a number of breeds - Maremma (Italian), Great Pyrenees (French), Kuvasz, Komondor, Akbash, Anatolian Shepherd among a few others, but these are the most popular breeds. They work very well when bonded to what they are protecting, so the younger they are introduced to sheep/goats etc. the better. Most often the serious breeders will raise the litters right with the flock so that they are with the sheep from the beginning. Oftentimes with these dogs, it looks like they aren't doing anything, but they are always on the alert and can go from a sound sleep to knowing something is wrong in very short order. They stay with the flock and aren't really drawn out by predators.

Ours was a Maremma, Mo, and the sheep and goats worked very well with him. If he started to bark they would all take notice and if he continued to bark they would all bunch together around him and if it were really serious, they would head for home. We have a quarter section (160 acres) and he travelled with them all over. They work off of what is "normal" in their environment and easily pick up on something that is amiss. Mo would rarely let people come over to his sheep without our saying it was okay, but once he had the green light from us, he would allow people to be in amonst his flock. Some of the livestock guardians are raised solely with the animals and tend to be very shy around humans they don't know.

As far as the llama goes, he does a good job and the sheep actually react to him the same way they did the dog. He makes that weird noise that llamas make and the sheep all bunch around him. Kumba is very attentive to the new borns and will sometimes stay with the moms as they lamb rather than go with the main flock. Again, they have to be bonded to whatever it is they are protecting and not to humans, which is maybe why pandiana's donkey doesn't seem to be earning his keep. Even when our dogs come around Kumba, he chases them away from the sheep. He just doesn't like them.

Kumba is a gelded male and I would suggest that if you do look at a donkey or a llama that they be gelded if they are males as they tend to get too aggressive if you don't. The key to success with either of these species is that they aren't bonded to people. Kumba will let us sort of touch him when he's being fed his daily ration of llama food, but other than that we can't really get too close to him. It seems if they are bonded to people they don't make good guardians and vice versa.

We didn't have many coyotes around in years past, but we have seen an increase in them since we've had some of our laws changed and a result of the anti-fur movement.

There are a number of books and articles written about livestock guardians and I can try to dig some of those up for you if you'd like.