# New animals and new LGD - How to intergrate?



## Evergreen160 (Apr 2, 2012)

Hi all!  I'm new around here and have a ton of questions that I hope someone can help me with.

I live on 1.5 acres in the foothills of Colorado (8,000 ft above sea level).  We are just starting to get our little hobby farm underway with chickens that will be coming at the end of April.  We are planning to add Nubian milking goats next year.

There are formable predators in our area - bears, mountain lions, bobcats, fox, hawks,... the list goes on!  We've devoted quite a lot of time to thinking about how the chickens and goats can be kept safe from predators and along with their housing, we want to add a LGD, preferably a Great Pyrenees.

So my questions are,....   I want our LGD to guard the chickens and the goats though the goats won't be here until next year.  How do I train for this?  Do I get the puppy use to the chickens and then put him/her with the goats later?  I'm just not sure how this will work.

We would like our LGD to be a completely outside dog and it seems like the Great Pyrenees would be well suited to our cold winters.  Even so,... how cold is too cold?  Would our LGD sleep in the barn with the goats or have a separate shelter?  Do most people enclose their LGD's with the animals at night or let them patrol outside of the individual animal's fences?

Thanks so much!  As you can see I am very new to all of this!


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