What do you use to guard your flock?

[Nyrial]

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Right, who needs a pony for the kids when you have something like that??

 

[Feddurs]

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I agree with everything you said about LGDs in general, except for the above.

The right Pyr or Anatolian is great, I'm sure, but try a Sarplaninac and then get back to me...

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/29822_ivan2.jpg

He's still a pup in that picture, btw.. Maybe 14-15 months, something like that.

There are a few other Livestock Guard Dog breeds occasionally seen, but they tend to be much rarer, and much more expensive. You can find a non-registered GP or GP/Anatolian mix for $50-$100 from a working ranch/farm, as someone above posted. How much does your Sarplaninac typically cost?

 

[Feddurs]

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I'm in Texas as well. My GPs sleep during the day, usually under the house where it's cool - though they'll come out to be fed, or if a rare daytime predator wanders too close. They build up a pretty thick coat in the winter, but in early spring they shed almost all of it, by the handful. When they're shedding, I don't even need to brush them, I just get a good grip of their shedding coat and pull it off in big wads. I could stuff pillows with it but the pillows would smell like dog. They thin down to a light, but tough, coat.

My GPs have several hundred acres they can wander. We have barbed-wire fences to keep the cattle and emus in, but the goats, chickens, ducks, and geese wander wherever they want to, right through the fences, and so do the GPs to guard them. They could go as far as they wanted, over the horizon, but they don't. They stay and guard.

And they're good guards. Yes, it's possible for a team of predators to occasionally get something, one pulling away the dogs, another rushing in from the other side to grab a chicken, but it doesn't happen very often. And they eventually catch them. We have every kind of Texas predator out here - coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, possums, feral dogs, owls, hawks, foxes, ring-tailed cats, and some even claim they've spotted a 'panther'. And yet my chickens don't even sleep in their coop any more. They fly up and sleep in the branches of the black walnut tree above the coop. And they're perfectly safe, because of the Great Pyrenees.

I've even watched my GPs chase off hawks. I was outside feeding the GPs a while back and the chickens were there too, trying to sneak some dog food, when one of the roosters made a warning noise. Before I even realized what was happening, the dogs were off, running across the yard, under a fence, and into the pasture. The rooster had spotted a hawk stooping and killing a mouse in the pasture, about 100 yards away. The dogs heard the rooster warning, and even though they were hungry and waiting for food, they were after that hawk at a full run. They almost caught it too. It didn't get a chance to eat that mouse.

 

[cmjust0]

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Ours was priced just right...free.

The long and short was that the folks who bred our guy ended up with a whole lot of irons in the fire at the same time.. Super great folks...can't say enough good things about them, they're really great people.. Anyway, by the time they were able to come up for air, he was already about 6mo old, probably nearing 100lbs, and not very nice around strangers. Conversely, he was excellent with goats and chickens, and they knew he'd be a really great guard...but that he definitely needed someone willing to overlook the occasional challenge to actually give him a chance to prove himself. We were lucky enough to be those folks -- superduper lucky. He seemed to like my wife right off the bat, but was petrified of me...which manifested as aggression, of course, since he's LGD to the bone...but I did my homework, we sorted it out in short order, and now he's my bestest big buddy. Can't imagine the barnyard without Ivan.

To answer the question, though...pretty good $$$, if you can even find one.. We're currently searching for a mate for Ivan, and the closest to his breed we can find -- without actually getting a female Sarpie and running the risk of inbreeding -- is a Caucasian Ovcharka.. I called about a female pup and it was gonna cost somewhere around $2,000.

In all fairness, I was just ribbing about the Pyrs and Anatolians....especially the Anatolians, which I really like. We're strongly considering crossing Ivan with an Anatolian, since we can find good local Anatolian pups for around $700 or so..

And, really, I like the seemingly-awesome Pyrs you guys dote on around here. Unfortunately, though, they seem somewhat different from the Pyrs I've seen around here. There are lots of goats in this area, and with them came lots of Pyrs...which bred with who knows what, so then there became lots of Pyr crosses.. And since dog breeders knew people needed Pyrs, a lot of Pyrs got bred that probably shouldn't have, which created a lot of Pyrs which were unsuitable for LGD duty...which then interbred with the others...so on, so forth.. Suffice it to say that finding a good Pyr is quite a bit more difficult than finding a Pyr around here these days..

Anatolians, though...still pretty pure. Which, of course, is why they're still spendy, but it's also why I kinda wouldn't mind having one or three.

 

[cmjust0]

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I've seen Ivan do that, but for turkey vultures.. Any big bird that swoops too low or flies too close, he gets ticked. It's not over the chickens, either...he just doesn't like it. Even when they're just circling and part of the arc is catching the barnyard, he'll stand with his nose in the air and bark like a maniac until they eventually move away..

Then again, he cornered a box turtle once because he didn't know what it was and it made him nervous..

 

[Feddurs]

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Yep, that's why I specified being careful about getting a pure GP or GP/Anatolian cross and not a mix of anything else. And even make sure a breeder has livestock so their GPs have been tested for the right instincts.

 

[The Chicken People]

Very secure cage and a 22 as well as my German Shephard and dont forget my maltese poodle/pom mix

 

[glitch]

My Doberman........he loves his chicks even if they do steal his food.
(check out the video in my signature)

 

[Kickin' Wing]

Dottie is the protector of the flock!

 

[Stazia86]

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okay you're going to have to explain that in more detail. What keeps them from getting out/ i mean it is a hole...unless you rig it somehow.
please let me know, because it sounds like a great idea. we have coons, so i'd like to try ANYTHING to catch them!