Teresa & Mike CHS - Our journal

[CntryBoy777]

If ya keep adding animals ya might need a whole litter....
Don't blame ya at all, tho....Thor is a beautiful dog, and I'm sure he won't mind.....

 

[Mike CHS]

ducks or chickens rotated through after the sheep can help with the worm problem.

We thought about that but both Maisy and Thor can jump the electric netting we rotate with and poultry running around would be short lived. Our parasite issues aren't any worse than other farms here except for a few of the sheep and they don't stay here long once they are identified and quarantined. The dogs have free run of all of the paddocks (in use or not).

 

[Mike CHS]

If ya keep adding animals ya might need a whole litter....
Don't blame ya at all, tho....Thor is a beautiful dog, and I'm sure he won't mind.....

We wanted to get another pup since Maisy is over 3 this year so we were planning on having at least another team of two to be ready to be on their own so she can get a break.

I need to see about getting a video of Thor racing the Ranger. If I'm on the drive he will trot along at the same speed until I floor it and then he turns into what looks like a white Cheetah when he stretches out full length on stride.

 

[Bruce]

Would the dogs jump the fences for the express purpose of going after poultry or would they stay with their charges?

 

[Bruce]

I need to see about getting a video of Thor racing the Ranger. If I'm on the drive he will trot along at the same speed until I floor it and then he turns into what looks like a white Cheetah when he stretches out full length on stride.

I would love to see that. I know how fast Merlin could take off. Don't know how long he could keep it up though.

 

[Mike CHS]

Thor doesn't walk anywhere and I have seen him go from one end to the other several times over when the vultures are working low and that's 2400' one way. The vultures seem to not be around as much since I hung one of the critters in effigy. For the record since we are on an open forum - I do have a permit to take them.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Thor is pure muscle....I was looking at him while there and his skin is so tight it glistens in the sun rays....I love his tail too, when he holds it straight up it reminds me of a scorpion's tail....ready to strike. Even Gabbie amazes me how fast and quick she is, so I am like Bruce, it would be fun to watch him in action....

 

[farmerjan]

Most parasites are species specific so running cattle and sheep in pastures will help. The best results are achieved by rotating them one after the other rather than together. With wool sheep, it is better to run the sheep after the cattle since the cattle do not care for the lanolin that the wooled breeds have, but I don't think that the hair sheep make a difference. Due to fencing issues, we do not run ours in rotation because the Dall sheep are not friendly like the domestics most people have, and if the fences are not VERY GOOD they will be out running loose. Being semi-feral, you will seldom call them to a bucket and have them all come. We run most all our cattle on rented/leased land and cannot be picky about the fences. But when and where we can, they do get rotated.

 

[Mike CHS]

Thanks Jan. We have fences to hold about anything except maybe a Giraffe. We talked to several people that run the them together as long as they are brought together at a young age since they are rotated fairly fast. We have enough room (and time) to experiment so we will try it both ways. One of our neighbor friends that bought several of our ewe lambs run them with young calves and they all seem to think they are the same species.

 

[Mike CHS]

I have had a couple of people comment about killing the Black Vultures since they are a migratory bird but I'll keep that offline. They aren't harmless and only our dogs kept us from losing I don't know how many lambs the last lambing season since we had a flock of over 75 birds. I'm including a link that shows how they work on separating a calf. We did find out this week that if we aren't able to kill one to hang up, there are plenty available out of the freezer to be obtained for hanging.