And yes, that truly is unfortunate because high quality dog food can be pricey. Negri hypothesized the culprit causing these fights may have been a cheap brand of food. She recommended the girls be given a high-quality food. The client followed through and the fighting stopped pretty much immediately. I do not recommend free feeding if you can avoid it. Some ranchers have so many livestock guardian dogs that feeding them twice a day is a major undertaking, so they free feed with food available all the time.
Guard dogs for sheep and goats. Can Dogs eat Smoked Salmon? Is Xanthan Gum safe for dogs. The primary period to bond pups to the species to be guarded is between the ages of eight and 16 weeks. A recently weaned guardian pup seeks the company of a group of lambs. Young animals raised in close association develop lifelong bonds.
Bonding pens work well to get pups off to a great start. Place a few calm and gentle ewes, goats or cows into a pen, with a protected area for the pup where he can see the livestock, but can escape to safety. Present the pup to the livestock under your supervision, but give the pup some quiet time where it can watch its new friends. The pup will get to know its livestock first through watching and sniffing noses, but will soon venture out for some gentle exploration.
Visit often to supervise, but let the pup spend the majority of its time with its livestock. Sibling fourth-month old pups demonstrate they are well on their way to becoming effective guardians as they stick close to the side of a resting ewe. A gradual process of adding animals and range allows for the pup to become accustomed to its larger flock and landscape, and develop more self-confidence in its guardian duties as its body grows.
Producers must be able to call and handle their guardians for care, so reinforce the human-dog connection, ensuring your dog is comfortable and content as your working partner. Be clear in teaching the pup what you expect from it, including staying within its territory. If the pup strays from the flock, or follows you to the house, return it to the livestock. Give the dog the benefit of training and experience. In short, a guarding and a herding dog show interest in the sheep for very different instinctive reasons.
These reasons are mutually exclusive. A true guardian dog is protecting the livestock and not its territory.
That means it will protect the livestock wherever it is and not its familiar territory. That is especially important when the flock is not stationary, when it grazes at least temporarily away from the home farm. Protecting its own territory can at times look like the dog is protecting livestock. Using a guardian dog will reduce your predator losses but predator loss may not necessarily be zero.
If you continue losing a sheep or lamb now and then it may not at all mean that your guardian dog failed. If the acreage is too large, too hilly, or too overgrown, a coyote may outsmart your guarding dog at times. In fact, the guardian dog may have never known the coyote was there. Keep your pasture smaller in order to avoid it or use more than one guardian dog.
The most controversially discussed topic of raising a guardian dog is whether or not the dog can be part of the family as well as a true guardian dog. In other words, should the guardian dog be with and obey the farmer or should human interaction be avoided or at least limited? I am in the latter camp.
While my guard dog may follow me around when I am in or near the flock and while he is certainly happy to see me, I cannot call or touch him. He will avoid me. I feed my dog in a little trailer that I can close up should I have a need to examine or treat the dog. A guardian dog that is too attached to the owner may want to leave the flock to be with the owner or his family.
That is perhaps okay when you just have a few acres and a few sheep. The dog will be still near the sheep. However, that may become a problem when one farms several hundred acres and when the pasture is miles away from home. There is certainly a happy middle ground. After all, at times Humans need to be able to get a hold of the dog. It is to guard the livestock and not to be a companion dog for the farmer or the family. Copyright Ulf Kintzel. For permission to use either text or photographs please contact the author at ulf whitecloversheepfarm.
Any ideas? Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Livestock Guardian Dogs. Ulf Kintzel Ulf owns and operates White Clover Sheep Farm and breeds and raises grass-fed White Dorper sheep and Kiko goats without any grain feeding and offers breeding stock suitable for grazing.
He is a native of Germany and lives in the US since He farms in the Finger Lakes area in upstate New York.
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