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This is "Mounty". A Great Pyrenees.
Great Pyrenees take their name from the mountain range in southwestern Europe where they long have been used as guardians of the flocks.
"Mounty" is very sweet, a bit stand offish...at first, but once he knows your OK, he will sit on your shoes and lean on your legs, not letting you move until you pay attention to him, then he's off to play in the stream again. We do not keep him in the pasture with the alpacas, but do have him "guard" the barn at night. He has one heck of a big bark! He has successfully chased away a few stray dogs & I am sure countless opossum, but most of the time, at least during the day, you will find him back at the cabin with our other dogs.... Spoiled. Of course, if you want a traditional "herd guard dog", you would need to have very little human contact with them & they would live with the livestock. For many farms, this works great, for us, well lets say it just didn't work out that way...Mounty arrived on the farm before our alpacas, so it was inevitable that he loves being around us more then them. None the less he is a great dog and protector of our property!
Learn more about the Great Pyrenees
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Peekay & Tandia are Rhodesian Ridgebacks
A sight hound, the breed originated in South Africa and were bread to hunt lions.
Now, with this being there intended prey you would have to assume they are ferocious dogs. On the contrary, they are sweet, VERY lazy, and a bit goofy at times. They have a distinct line of hair that grows backwards down the center of their backs, like a cow came along and took a big, long lick down their back. Tandia, our female is the alpha queen of the dog pack at Lasso the Moon. For an old gal she sure is fast!
How are the Ridgebacks around the alpacas?
Indeed, they would love to give them a good chase, or at least lick them to death. We do not let them get to close to them, even though we do not have any fear that they would hurt them, chase them, yes, if it runs they will chase, but bite them, no. But we think it to be unfair and stressful to the alpacas, since it does make them nervous to have dogs, a natural predator, around. So we do our best to keep the dogs out of the barn, especially when the alpacas are eating, or we are doing chores, even though the alpacas don't seem to give them a second thought and have become accustomed to their presence around the farm.
Learn more about the Rhodesian Ridgeback
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The Cats
What is a barn or art studio without cats? Our cats were adopted from the Humane Society and have been fixed.
( all 4 of them, they had a two for one sale, seriously!!!!) No kitties to worry about, although kittens are cute, we are big advocates of spaying and neutering that which you do not intend to breed for show.
Our barn cats have a special stairway just for them to get up to our art studio on the second level of the barn, sooo spoiled & loved!
How are cats and alpacas?
Cats should always be spayed/neutered and be kept up to date on shots & test negatively for FLV & FIBV, especially around alpacas which can get toxoplasmosis.....just like humans do. If you are diligent about the care of your cats and do your best to encourage them to eat "cat food" instead of wild things, it should not be a problem. We keep our alpaca food storage and hay away from the cats by keeping it under tarps and in large bins, to discourage any cat feces from coming in contact with the alpaca food, plus having a littler box in the studio upstairs to discourage them from using the barn downstairs.
Of course, the only reason some feel you should have cats is to catch those nasty varmint! Believe me, they will still bring you those lifeless, fuzzy, headless, gifts of appreciation, but just don't encourage them to eat it by not feeding them quality cat food.
They have been a real treat to have around the barn, each having a very different personality. "Hehe", our large black tabby will even take walks with the dogs-big dogs...has no clue he is a cat!
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Chickens
Did you know that chickens do not come from eggs...
they come from the post office. yep, they arrive in a little box that peeps all the way home. We have 30ish chickens. Mostly hens, and a few, OK, 6 roosters. The roosters are loud, and do their very best to out LOUD each other. They crow in the morning, anytime someone new comes around, a big bug is found by someone other then them, or what the heck, just because they feel like it! Personally we enjoy it, and much to our surprise our neighbors seem to too, especially when we share the eggs. You just haven't lived until you cook up a fresh egg that you plucked from under a hen that morning. A deep orange yoke, with a creamy rich flavor!!! Yummy! They are very easy to care for and very entertaining! Most of our chickens are rare breed chickens, that come in fancy colors with rather silly hair do's. But we also have some industrial strength brown egg layers and some of the Peruvian blue and green egg laying Araucana. We are hoping to add to the flock this spring, maybe even crazier looking birds! My husband keeps eyeballing the roosters hackle feathers to use for flies for fly fishing, and I am afraid I may come home to a coup that is not quit as LOUD, one of these days. They truly are big fun, loud, but fun!
How do chickens and alpacas get along?
Great! The chickens eat the snails that can potentially carry the meningeal worm virus!....So, they have that going for them, plus they seem to provide extra exercise and entertainment, as the alpacas like to chase the chickens. I once watched one of our males individually chase each chicken into the coop, kicking, jumping and snorting the whole time, he was having a hoot & holler of a good time doing it!
Of course chicken poop is entirely another story. While it makes a fantastic fertilizer they are not at all shy about where they poop. They poop on everything, and unless you are diligent about keeping the waters and feed buckets clean, and I mean a good scrub, it is probably not for you. It really helps that our chickens have a coop separate from the barn. Which means a whole lot less poop in the barn, in fact it is rare that I find a chicken's 'whitecap" in a feed bin. And, regardless of having, nice, hand-built-to-specification, laying boxes in the coop, they lay their eggs all over the place, in the corners of the stalls, in hay bags, under bushes & sometimes even in the middle of the driveway. Fortunately they do not poop when they are laying. It is like Easter egg hunting everyday! To me fun, to you well, only you know the answer...
Interesting Chicken & Egg Facts & Recipes!
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