Sandy,
On at least one of the kills you described I don't believe it was coyotes. Coyotes
usually will eat the stomach and "guts" first. You may have more than one kind of
predator.
The following is only my take on your possible options:
If you don't have too much land to worry about you can try field fence with a strand
of hot wire on bottom and a strand or two on top. With a powerful low impedance
charger you would probably stop the predators. Not very feasible for lots of land or
with rough terrain.
I personally would consider the LGD. We have an Anatolian and I don't think anything
under a grizzly would be willing to tie up with him if they had a choice. A pack of
"wild" domestic dogs might if they were big enough, but not most truly wild predators.
They have extremely keen survival insticts and I don't believe if they had the
opportunity to flee, they would be willing to take on a large charging snarling LGD.
The risk of injury is too great and could easily be life threatening for a predator. I
must say our Turk is very formidable. "Much of a man" as my nieghbor puts it. But with
the family he is as gentle as lamb.
The problem is getting a LGD grown and doing its job. Some go thru "playful" stages
after a year or two old and are hard to break from "playing" with the sheep and
chasing them. If you can get one, they are as another poster stated,
worth their weight in gold.
Turk actually herds the sheep into the small front pasture (2 acres) every night and
lays by the back gate of that pasture. Otherwise, he just hangs out with them wherever
they go.
My problem with snares, traps, shooting, etc, is that is only a temporary fix. More
will move in you can be sure of it. It happened here. I'm not sure what kind of
terrain and populaiton base you have around you, but my land is surrounded by hundreds
of acres of uninhabited woodland hills and bluffs. There is no such thing as getting
rid of them here. And the next time they may come in from a different, even
undetectable spot. My deer hunting friends at work say they have seen coyotes hop over
48" field fence like it was nothing. You could lose many more trying to trap that one
and so on.
Just my 2 cents,
Chris B.
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Date: 2004/06/09 Wed PM 12:58:00 EDT
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: [blackbelly] RE:predators
>
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