HoneyDreameMomma
True BYH Addict
Definitely agree with the fencing!
The LGD's and working well I think much depends on the dog a person gets. the breeding behind the dog, and how the human works with the dog.
All of my dogs are fully working before 1 year of age and go through kidddings with zero problems. I currently have 4 pyr pups fully guarding no chasing livestock, with kids and they are just shy of 9 months. Our Anatolian pup is now 9 months and has been full time for months.
I agree on boredom... dogs must have a job to do!
X2
Our Anatolian is now just over a year old, and he's been in with our goats full-time since we got him from the breeder. He's always been in with a fully-trained adult LGD, which probably helped, but he's definitely had the instinct from the get-go. He's never hurt a goat, he did great with kidding, and he was only about 7 months old at the time. That said, we had to do some pretty heavy training between about 6-10 months to get him to behave with poultry. He's great around the birds now - they can free range right next to him, but he does kill wild rabbits in the field a lot, so, as was mentioned earlier, you'll definitely want to be aware and have a game plan for that.
I think you can do it with training and patience. LGDs are smart and intuitive in many ways, and if they see repeatedly/consistently that something is important to you, they will usually help you take care of it, or indirectly protect it by keeping the predators away from the area in general and just leaving it alone. Case in point, we have a house bunny, that the LGDs occasionally watch through the windows when they sit out on the back porch. They've never tried to go after him. It might be because of the glass, but they've never even barked or growled at him. I like to think they understand that he belongs (although I've never done a hard core test of that theory-love my bun too much to risk it ).
Anyway, best of luck. I absolutely recommend LGDs. The coyotes have been awful here this year, and our neighbors without LGDs are losing livestock like crazy. *Knock on wood* - we haven't lost a single goat or poultry to coyotes in all the time we've had LGDs, even though I see/hear them around here frequently. I actually consider our LGDs the most valuable animals on my farm, because all the other animals are safe because of them.
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