Do it yourself hot packs Hey all, Winter is upon us. This time of year is when I struggle most to stay warm, and the lyme disease that I deal with tends to affect my joints the most. Hot packs …
I hobnob with our livestock guardian dogs every day, for a significant part of the day. I refer to them as my “buds.” They seem like “big mushes” to me. It’s easy to forget that livestock guardian dogs protect people …
In our experience many livestock guardian dogs have a favorite species to protect. They will protect almost any number of species, but they have a favorite and gravitate to it. Most Livestock Guardian Dogs Seem to Have a Favorite Species. …
On our homestead Guerrero’s “claim to fame” is simply that he is a faithful livestock guardian dog. His father was our Bravo. Bravo had fire. He was strikingly beautiful. Bravo was alpha. Guerrero’s mother was a 3/4 Anatolian 1/4 Pyrenees owned …
Guardi the Pyre (Great Pyrenees) was our first LGD. He was given to us within two years of our arrival in Oklahoma and acquisition of goats. Having spent a significant part of our lives in Mexico, we tended to name …
Moses was an old Pyrenees. As a pup he freely roamed the fields around his farm, warding off coon, coyote and hawks from his beloved sheep and poultry. As he grew older so did his neighborhood. A housing development sprang …
A common misconception about livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) is that they regularly KILL intruders: a predator ventures onto the homestead and… the LGD kills it, end of story. As a general rule this is not how they work. Bravo, one …
Some years ago, I stepped out the back door to start milking and found Bravo (pictured above) eating a white bird right outside our door. He was still a big puppy and I struggled to train him as a livestock …
Livestock guardian dogs (a.k.a. LGDs) are relatively new to North America. Before their arrival predator control was much more difficult. Those who raised livestock generally had to trap, poison or hunt predators which attacked their stock. Sometimes this involved great …
Hey all, I’m a tea drinker, and some of you might be too. Did you know that you can grow your own red zinger tea? You can. The plant that it is made from is called Hibiscus or Roselle. One …