Oh, what do you all think about a Pyrenees / Border Collie mix?
OQB, are you thinking about a pet or a livestock guardian? If a pet, that would be an interesting combination and I bet would be a great dog. I personally love Border Collie's for their intelligence. My black dog is half lab, half border collie and got the best of both breeds, IMO. However, if you are thinking for a LGD, this may not make a good mix. The BC would probably reduce the size of the GP and depending on whether the BC was long or short haired (they come in both), it could also impact the type of coat the dog has. I.e., if it gets the GP coat, it would do great outside in the winters guarding but if it got the BC coat, and the BC was short haired, maybe not so much. But the most important factor would be personality - they have such different functions. BC's are bred to herd sheep while GP's are bred to protect. And, BC's can be VERY intense, so an intense BC trying to herd poultry can be a recipe for disaster.
What I found with my mix is she got the size of the BC but the personality of the lab, so she is joyful and energetic and obsessed with retrieving rather than herding, which means she is fine around the chickens. But - there is really no guarantee as to which of the parents will pass along its traits, and with a GP/BC mix, it is a crap shoot whether the pup will be more interested in herding or protecting. JMO.
Honestly, it makes me kind of mad to hear about mixes like this, as it shows a complete lack of thought on the dog owner's part as to breeding. If they are not planning on responsible breeding, they should get the dogs spayed or neutered! To allow these two breeds to mix is utter nonsense.
Danz, I'm glad you were able to offload some birds. I hope the guy was able to make it home before the bad weather really hit, and that he had a way to keep the birds out of the wind while he was on the road.
OQB, those are adorable bee gifts your DIL found!!!
Well, I just looked at the weather forecast and the high for Monday is supposed to be 14 and the low that night will be -2. Yikes. I really hope none of us lose any animals to this next bout of wintry weather.
A few weeks ago DH replaced a GFCI for me and since then the sheep/goat's heated bucket and the chicken's heated water bowl have performed flawlessly - until 3 days ago. Then I went out one morning to find both frozen. I reset the GFCI but next morning - frozen again. Yesterday, after repeating this daily for several days, I told DH I think the new GFCI has gone bad. He went to take a look at it and found that the GFCI is fine but the chicken's water bowl is shorting it out every time I reset it. We unplugged the heated water bowl and sure enough, the sheep water bucket stayed unfrozen after that. Grrr. This is the third heated water bowl this winter - they just don't seem to last very long. Now that we are headed into another freeze, I'm left using rubber bowls, and I know that will just be a solid block of ice this morning. DH said he'll take a look at the bowl and see if he can figure out what's wrong with it. They're too expensive to only last a few weeks at a time.
