Consolidated Kansas

[JosieChick]

Congrats Danz on your one peafowl chick! When did you guys see development in you eggs? I haven't candled yet but was thinking about checking them tonight...

If you do get an older Pyrenees you need to be sure it has been around chickens and you will have to do some extensive training with your other dogs so they don't fight. It can be done but you have to show it that the dogs belong there and there is not reason for them to feel uncomfortable around them.
One more thing. A pyrenees doesn't get fully mature until they are about 2 1/2. I know that is a long time to have some of that puppy bahavior. A female will act mature a lot sooner. You are still going to see some of that pack rat behavior unless the dog is over that age. If you get an older dog you are going to be dealing with a shorter life span. These dogs normally live to about 10 years old. I know some live much longer but that is their life expectancy. Other than that though they aren't so much like a normal puppy. They are very serious about their work.
One thing to keep in mind is that they will help protect any other animals you have there. Horses, cattle, goats, etc. If you domesticate it it becomes part of their "property" to protect.

Definitely make sure it has been around chickens! An older dog obviously is going to have some re training needs but in my opinion it was worth the early trouble to have a dog that already knew its job. In some of the books on LGDs the Pyr in particular is noted as a breed known for its aloof nature which disposes it well to being transitioned to a new farm. I don't think Molly ever really missed her old owners per se and it only took her a few days to settle in and start protecting our critters. I just kept her penned for a while until she knew this was her place. With the invisible fence you shouldn't have a problem. Although I found with Molly that I had to let her learn where the boundaries were because she thought that I was a "link" in the system when I tried walking her on a leash to teach her. It just didn't work for her.

Be careful when you introduce new things too. The dogs have to know that a new critter is also accepted. Molly did not like the mini ponies when I first brought them home and would chase them away from the bigger horses! It took a while to teach her that the minis belonged too. Now they are just part of the gang.

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Thanks also for the input on the Pyrenees. I do have another question: how do you all handle vacations? Personally I don't really care to be gone - I'm a home body and vacations just stress me out with the preparations before, the unpacking after and the worry while we're gone about how our animals are faring. Nevertheless, my kids and DH do like to travel so inevitably we have to go away for a week or two here or there. Normally we board our dogs while we're gone but the point of the LGD is to protect the livestock so we would want it to stay here and protect even more while we're gone. But if they are that protective, will it be an issue having someone come by daily to feed him/her? More likely than not, it would be my next door neighbor and we could do introductions so that the dog knows the neighbor, but will that be enough? Will he or she feel the need to protect the property even from the neighbor? And if so, how do you handle feedings when you are gone?

We have not gone on vacation yet but when we do we are planning on hiring a pet sitter and having them out before hand to meet the dogs. Once they meet someone a couple times and get fed by them I think they will be fine. It is important that the person not be afraid of them though. I have noticed that Molly doesn't care for people who are wary of her. While she does do a lot of barking I have never had her go after anyone either. Lucie, the pup, is so stupidly friendly (I have over socialized her) that she likes everyone who shows up which I don't particularly care for. I like that Molly hangs back and barks because she looks tough and scary and it keeps people in their vehicle until I get out there. Lucie just runs up to everyone like they are old friends. Maybe that will change as she ages as she is just starting to discover her "bark" but I bet she will always be friendlier. When Molly is gone I will look for a dog that is more reserved to partner with her so I always have a dog that hangs back and barks ferociously. If Molly won't quit barking at someone and I want her to stop I go over and tell her what a good girl she is and what a good job she did barking but that will do and that's enough. She knows "that's enough" means it is time to quit barking, mom has determined that the intruder is ok!

I like the puppy but I don't like all the babysitting and puppy behavior. She chases the chickens, she pulls feathers out of my turkeys, she digs up around the fruit trees, she drags garbage out of bags, she chewed the bark off one of the fruit trees the other day because she is teething, she picks up and carries off ANYTHING you set down...the list goes on. It is just annoying puppy stuff but I have little patience for it. She has toys and chew treats and a pool and I play with her, brush her, work on commands to burn off energy but she is just a ball of fire. If you get a pup don't pick the most outgoing pup or you will wind up with a Lucie!

I have a great book on LGD, I will get you the name of it. There is a chapter on puppy personality types and how to pick a pup from a litter based on what you need from a LGD. I wish I had the book before I picked out the puppy!

So glad your favorite little hen is ok. Kind of the silver lining in the whole ordeal.

 

[chicken danz]

I haven't had a vacation in a couple years. We are talking maybe taking a week at the end of July but it's doubtful. If you have someone who you can get to feed and care for your animals that is great. A pyrenees needs to stay where it lives. They have great memories and if they get to know someone I just can't see them being aggressive. My two younger ones look aggressive but just love on everyone when they get out of the vehicle. My older female however, doesn't trust any one she doesn't know unless I tell her it's okay. They come out barking most of the time but its just a bark. As far as food I would just have whomever feed them like they are normally fed. I only feed my dogs at night because the chickens and ducks free range and they clean up every last morsel of dog food if I put it out during the day. Since your birds are penned you wouldn't have that problem.
I just went out and watered every one and had to come back in. I couldn't stand to stay out and feed. It was just too darned hot out there.
I'll have to cool down and try again. I need to be getting ready to go to town but should finish feeding first. I picked a couple tomatoes and my first cucumber. For no rain and little watering I was thrilled to get that much. the few tomatoes I've had have been super tiny. I have water running on the garden right now. Tomorrow I'll probably drain the duck pond out there again. Things are just wilting out there other than the weeds I don't have pulled.
At this point I don't worry about them so much because they do offer some shade on the roots at least. I remember back in the 70s when it was hot and dry no one had tomatoes cause they were burning up on the vine. We had a large patch on top of a hill and never watered or did any weeding. We had tomatoes like crazy. The weeds had actually protected them from getting overly dry and sun burnt. Had we been smart we would have sold them. We canned like crazy and gave lots away. Btu we were poor college kids and the money would have made a big difference.
I caught my foot stepping over the goose fence this morning and fell on my butt. Man I hit hard. It is throbbing like crazy. It seems if I don't have at least one major bruise and multiple scrapes I'm not normal.
Hawkeye, glad your party was a success. I wish I had hosting skills and a place to do things like that. Maybe in my next life!

 

[chicken danz]

Josie, I think I checked mine at about 15 days and could only see development in that one egg. I didn't toss the others though cause I wanted to see what happened. I've been wrong before when I candled things. I have two more eggs I ordered in the incubator but they haven't been in there long enough to develop yet.
Another one of my peahens eggs got broken so I'm down to one that a broody is sitting on. You would think they'd be tougher than chicken eggs but they sure seem to break easily. I 'm not holding out hope for it either since it sat in the nest so long. The two in the incubator were so hot when they go here in the mail I don't have high hopes for them either. I am just hoping for the best.
I'm still letting the chick rest but it has been up and moving in the hatcher. I'll get it out later and see if we can get some feeding started.

 

[cherwill]

Update: It was a fox and I got him! Will fill in the details later - need to go clean up now.

Good job! And I'm glad your favorite hen was spared.

Well I am excited! My one lone fertile peafowl egg hatched. It is still wet and not being active at all. I'll give it some time to dry out and make sure it is going to be okay. Here comes the fun of getting it to eat. I sure hope I don't have the trouble you have had Trish. No problems hatching it at all. Doesn't make up for the non-fertile eggs but I am happy it hatched.

Yay for the little pea egg! I hope it does OK.

This thread seems too long to look through all of it

It is. Just jump on in.

I haven't had a vacation in a couple years. We are talking maybe taking a week at the end of July but it's doubtful. If you have someone who you can get to feed and care for your animals that is great. A pyrenees needs to stay where it lives. They have great memories and if they get to know someone I just can't see them being aggressive. My two younger ones look aggressive but just love on everyone when they get out of the vehicle. My older female however, doesn't trust any one she doesn't know unless I tell her it's okay. They come out barking most of the time but its just a bark. As far as food I would just have whomever feed them like they are normally fed. I only feed my dogs at night because the chickens and ducks free range and they clean up every last morsel of dog food if I put it out during the day. Since your birds are penned you wouldn't have that problem.
I just went out and watered every one and had to come back in. I couldn't stand to stay out and feed. It was just too darned hot out there.
I'll have to cool down and try again. I need to be getting ready to go to town but should finish feeding first. I picked a couple tomatoes and my first cucumber. For no rain and little watering I was thrilled to get that much. the few tomatoes I've had have been super tiny. I have water running on the garden right now. Tomorrow I'll probably drain the duck pond out there again. Things are just wilting out there other than the weeds I don't have pulled.
At this point I don't worry about them so much because they do offer some shade on the roots at least. I remember back in the 70s when it was hot and dry no one had tomatoes cause they were burning up on the vine. We had a large patch on top of a hill and never watered or did any weeding. We had tomatoes like crazy. The weeds had actually protected them from getting overly dry and sun burnt. Had we been smart we would have sold them. We canned like crazy and gave lots away. Btu we were poor college kids and the money would have made a big difference.
I caught my foot stepping over the goose fence this morning and fell on my butt. Man I hit hard. It is throbbing like crazy. It seems if I don't have at least one major bruise and multiple scrapes I'm not normal.
Hawkeye, glad your party was a success. I wish I had hosting skills and a place to do things like that. Maybe in my next life!

I'm just like you -- never completely bruise-free! Your tomatoes sound like our entire crop last year. Ours were so small, I just fed most of them to the chickens. Some of our cucumbers have been bitter again this year, but at least half have been good. How are your cucumbers?

Our community garden has slowed down a lot. The pole beans have all dried up and one row of the bush beans looks like it's drying up, too. One of the gardeners said he thought pole beans were less sun and heat tolerant than bush beans, but he thought that row of bush beans looked sun burned. What am I supposed to do about that??? Squash bugs are killing my squash plants one by one. I've lost a zucchini, a delicata and both scallops. Hopefully we'll get a few more zucchini before the other one dies, and hopefully the delicata and butternut will live long enough to ripen at least.

The good news is that there are a ton of Roma tomatoes. They're all green, but most look like they'll be good-sized. The shallots have been fantastic, too. We have more eggplant than we know what to do with, and the tomatilloes are still thriving.

At the bonus garden, rabbits have gotten to the ripe heritage tomatoes, but so far have left the rest alone. Of course, they're not nice and ripe yet .... The carrots, what few are left, don't seem to be growing any more.

 

[Trish44]

HeChicken, I agree with Danz about the new critters you introduce. My pups know every time I bring something new out & they bark & bark at it until I tell them "leave it", then they know it's something that belongs there. They have done that with all the chicks I brought out to the grow-out pen, the turkeys, & now the peafowl chicks. They also have to get used to new things running around the yard like now my younger chicks, some of them have been let out to free-range & Lily for some reason doesn't think they should come out of the run & she will herd them back in. She is used to the older chickens running around all over the place, but I guess she is concerned that the younger ones got out of the pen or something. My dogs know the command "leave it" though, I taught them that very young. There are quite a few Great Pyrenees up for adoption with the Great Pyrenees rescue groups, you just have to read their rules though because some allow you to get them for an LGD & some organizations only allow them as pets. You will see them from time to time on Craigslist too if you watch. I helped someone place a 4 month old pup on the swap meet not too long ago that had gotten it in preparation to move to a farm & then it didn't happen. It is now with a big family living on a farm. If I see them on the pet swaps I invite them to put them on the Farm Animal Swap or I will put their ad on for them with contact info. My pups are going on 9 months old now & are not so much into the puppy stuff as they were earlier on, they're still big pups, just not as rowdy as they were. They still bring me lots of stuff I have to pick up out of the yard almost every day, but I don't mind that as much as the other stuff they used to do. I can rest at night now though knowing they are watching over things, especially Jasmine my lead LGD, she is always on the alert & is first to go after something. Yeah the puppy stage wasn't that much fun, but we made it through it & they're doing so much better now & are doing their job. It was only about 6 months of the really bad puppy stage.

I have already hired a Critter Sitter to come & take care of our animals & birds when we go on vacation. I think once she comes out & introduces herself to the pups they will be all right with her. They do seem to know who likes animals & dogs & who doesn't. Jasmine especially has this ability to tell who likes her & who doesn't & she will shy away from those she doesn't trust. The mail lady is afraid of them & they will stand & bark at her & they do have this deep bark that makes people wonder, but it's mostly bluster plus they are big dogs. Lily would probably go with anybody that would take her though & that kind of worries me, but I know Jasmine wouldn't. I don't know how they would act if we weren't here though, they do as Danz said protect the whole property & everyone & everything on it, it's their territory. We're lucky here with how our property sits in that they have to go up the hill & back down the other side to get to the road, so they mostly tend to stay on this side of it. All of the shady places to sleep & get out of the heat are on this side too & that is a big draw right now in the daytime. I have not used this Critter Sitter before, I hope it goes well while we're gone, I know that I will worry about all of my birds & animals, but this time at least we will be somewhere where we can call & check on things. Other times when we have gone out of the country we couldn't use our phones, but we didn't have all of the critters we have now either.

Danz, let me know how you little peachick does. Mine is still alive, but I honestly don't know how. I wish there was some way I could tell if the others are eating or not. I read on the peafowl board where someone uses green dye in the feed & then if they poop green they know they ate. I guess that's an idea I could try.

 

[JosieChick]

Sorry folks, I missed a bunch of posts this morning somehow!! I just started at Hawkeyes at the bottom of the page for some reason??? Pyrs are kleptos! What is up with that??? Molly doesn't do it but she does feel the need to bury EVERYTHING I give her! DH says she is like the dog on the farmers insurance commercial worrying about his bone that he hid and moving it all over the place. She moves all her buried bones at least every other day to a new burial sight!

I had mine in with the chickens and all was well until new birds were added. That's when we had the neck tearing issues, BUT he is a pup and is still bonded to the birds. I think he was just bored and didn't mean to hurt them. He is now out of the chicken yard and patrols around it. He has not left the property and doesn't seem to have the desire to. He does have a rather large "treasure" pile in the back yard and he has a dug out back there. It's a GP thing, I think they're all kleptos, lol.

HEchicken- You need a Molly, she is the BEST! I don't know what I ever did without her and sometimes I think I would kill the puppy if she wasn't here! I just keep telling myself that someday Lucie will be more like Molly!

Poor dog, those are big shoes to fill. There was a Maremma down in Wichita a few weeks ago that was good with everything and they were only asking $30 for her! She would have been perfect for you!

I lied about our dogs not being bonded to the chickens. I guess I just assume they aren't that attached but I picked a roo up today that was in the wrong pen and he started kicking up a fuss like someone was killing him and Molly came running out of nowhere barking her head off at the chicken pen until she saw me. I told her it was ok and she wagged her tail at me and went back to her sleeping spot. Such a good girl.

 

[prairie]

HeChicken, So sorry about all your chickens!! but sure glad you got the fox. I would have never thought a fox could climb a fence!!

Our granddaughters come and take care of our dogs, cats and poultry but I am a little worried that something like your massacre will happen and they will be the ones that will find the mess. It would be very hard on them!

We are leaving soon for a 10 day trip out of the country and I have 2 batches of new babies -- with mama hens. They will be 3 weeks old when we leave so they should be ok............ I hope! The mama's got them out of the chicken house for the first time today and I must have run out there 10 times to make sure everyone was behaving.

Just worry too much when I am gone!! Hope you are doing ok after your traumatic experience! Hugs!!

 

[chicken danz]

The peachick drank water as soon as I took it out of the hatcher. I dipped its beak a couple times.But now it is sitting there yelling non-stop. I have no idea why. I put my little cornish chicks in a bin with it and I thought they would keep it company. I've tried to get it to eat but it doesn't show any interest yet. The only time it is quiet was when I was carrying it around. Trish did your chick yell a lot? I wanted to put it in with the baby turkeys because they have similar needs but they turkeys wanted to taste it right off the bat.
I could go insane if it doesn't quiet down a little soon! I'm sure it could use a nap.
I went to town and delivered eggs then went to visit my Dad. He was having a rough day today and wanted to talk about Mom. So I spent a couple hours tearing up. Some days are just stones when you loose a parent.
So I didn't get things done I really needed to do today. I either need to get back in gear and get to work or try to kill myself tomorrow trying to get things done.
I stopped and spent a chunk of money on juices and pop, cereal etc that kids eat. I really don't have much in the house to feed a kid. I honestly need a major trip to a bigger town to stock up on food. Maybe when I pick my granddaughter up at the airport we can stop and shop on the way home.
When I stayed in Colorado a couple winters ago I would just load up all the girls and let them choose what they wanted to eat. My oldest granddaughter is Vegan and let me tell you feeding her really ran up some $$. I often wonder if she will outgrow this. It's been going on a couple years. She looks pale and weak to me.
Yeah, Josie they are definitely Kleptos. You hit that nail on the head. Marshmallow does the same thing that Molly does. I'll bet I have more dog biscuits buried in this yard than Petsmart carries in their stores at one time!!! Then she goes to dig them up after a rain or something and can't find them. I do have many holes in the yard. All of them have extreme hearing as well. If they hear a mouse or a mole they will dig into the tunnel and grab it. Unfortunately there are way too many opportunities for that. I have home made bait stations all over this yard but I swear those mice multiply by the hundreds.
Speaking of which I might have said this before. I absolutely love finding a new nest of mice pinkies and feeding them to the chickens. It's the world' best treat to grab a pinky and run from the other chickens with it dangling from their mouth. When someone else grabs it it gets eaten in one bite. I guess you have to parade your goodies to the crowd before you eat.

 

[chicken danz]

Prairie, I'm sure you know but be sure to put some water down for the babies that they can drink in and won't drown in. I have plastic waterers and low bowls every where for the chicks the broodies hatch. I just fill them when I'm watering the rest of the group.

 

[JosieChick]

Danz- You better be careful or that pea chick is gonna think your its mama!!!

I don't know if your DH would like a pea fowl running around the house with a giant tail!!!

I tried to put my 3 call ducklings in with the magpie ducklings but they were getting really wet and the bigger ducklings were kinda chomping on them so I put a quick end to that and they are back in their own brooder. I have been staining the wood ceiling in the house so I wanted to move them out to the garage so they weren't in here getting high on stain fumes. They sure aren't happy about their move! Every time I go out they are cheeping away.