Hi Michael, Sorry everyone for the pre-mature "empty" post.
As far as dog breeds look at your environment and climate. There are many good LGD breeds. The Great Pyrenees is least likely to bite a human but do not do as well in high temperatures. The Anatolians are from what I have seen more aggressive towards humans and handle heat better. I could use some "Anatolian" traits in my LGDs to help with my two legged coyote (thieves). I am sure someone with Anatolians can give you better information. I have raised several litters of puppies with 8 month old lambs penned up during the winter months without problems. These were ewe lambs and they had no problem thumping a puppy that got out of line. But the key is to raise the puppies with your livestock. The livestock become family and nobody messes with family! At one year old my puppies really kicked it in regarding the coyote. Several were seriously hurt but healed up well. This has lead my dogs to being a bit "over the top" with a grudge against the coyote. I have never raised newborn lambs with puppies before. I have three bottle babies that are newborns being raised right now with puppies born on April 15th. At this moment they are at equal development status. The puppies lick and socialize with the lambs. And the lambs socialize with the puppies with the occasional nipple search thrown in. I have the bottle babies kennel immediately adjacent to the puppies kennel. They sleep next to each other with the bars of their kennels between them. I only let the lambs with the puppies under supervision right now. They play with each other with the lambs being much taller and more mobile. The puppies' momma thinks it is great to have more family around. Both puppies and lambs will have to be moved outside within days from my garage/shop. The mess is getting to the breaking point. Although it might be possible to get a good dog from non-working parents I would not advise it. A mature dog that has not been around livestock is probably not a great idea either. You cannot look at a puppy and tell if it is the run the perimeter (whole neighborhood) version or the stay with the flock version. My perimeter running dogs are very respectful of any neighbors dog's territory. But if the neighbors do not have a dog their territory falls under the umbrella of protection of my perimeter dogs service. A empty house for sale has become a sentry station with convenient dusk to dawn light. Come daylight the perimeter dogs come home to sleep with the sheep. Whatever you decide do not scold the dogs for barking. Barking is what they do and acknowledge that before you buy a LGD. Mark Wintermute Subject: Re: [Blackbelly] Coyote fence ideas starting to look into LGDs locally. I'll try googling on the subject regarding the dogs themselves, but there are some AB-BB questions related to dogs I'd like to ask: male or female dog? does it matter? at what weight/age are the AB-BB lambs, that they are less likely to get played with and accidentally killed? at what age are the dogs when they are less likely to accidentally kill a AB-BB lamb? since we only breed once a year--in this case, once in 3 years-- and only two or three ewes at a time, we don't have a bunch of spare lambs around to spend allowing a puppy to figure things out. -Michael, Perino Ranch Blackbellies _______________________________________________ This message is from the Blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
