Livestock!

[TNHawke]

Yikes. I imagine that stress and fear could put them off their laying.

Can you contact authorities and ask them to do a few drive bys to help cut down on potential vandalism?

[spirithawk06]

Thought my reply went through to this. We've had the authorities by quite a bit. We can never get them and it doesn't really stop them. They wait until after the cops patrol and then come do their mischief. We're at the end of a street with pastures on either side and on either side of that too, so it's hard to stop the mischief. We just finished fencing off our back yard, so hopefully that will stop some of it because it is hard to get over the field fence (we left it without a top brace so the fence will come down on them if they try to get over it. One of these days they will slip up.

[TNHawke]

Heh... discretely set up electric fencing.

And a moat or pit trap.

Or release a pack of velociraptors at night.

[NorthernLady]

Heh... discretely set up electric fencing.

And a moat or pit trap.

Or release a pack of velociraptors at night.

Oh, My Hawke is creative today.

I'd second electric fencing. There's one that's a tape, and wire are weaved. Sometimes can look like a piece of board, if done right.

Hey Hawke, would a goose do, as well?

[TNHawke]

Only if it's a tolouse goose! I've met far too many gentle Canada geese, and I've never met an African goose I didn't like (aside from not appreciating the repeated attempts to hump my leg...)

[Jenn]

Run electric fence about 6 inches off the ground, and again just INSIDE your fence railing. One of my neighbors even has it so that if you open a gate on his place, you will walk forehead first into a line of electric wire (He's short, so it isn't a worry for him, but anyone my height [5'7"] or taller will hit it, we always have to remember to duck when we are watching his cattle for him if he is out of town).

[TNHawke]

Ha ha! That's awesome, Jenn! I bet it works great!

[Jenn]

It does, and he doesn't have any low voltage fencer either, it'll knock you on your butt for a second at least. Dad walked into it one day on accident and said he never wants to hit it again - and keep in mind, we're used to getting shocked from time to time with our own.

[spirithawk06]

Well, my birds started laying again. After we went out there armed and I fired off our revolver, the trespassers quit. We're working on getting more cameras and we put fencing up that isn't easy to duck through in the back yard.

We have 2 tolouse geese. They're nice to us but hate invaders. They're the ones who let us know first if someone is around. They start going off before the dogs do. Our guys have scared some people off before.

My birds are laying again. Hopefully, I'll have chicks within a few weeks.

My doe dropped twin kids day before yesterday. She managed to hold off until we had a warm day. The next day was miserable but by then, we had them snuggly set up in the barn with hay and we gave mamma goat more feed. We have a black and white doeling and a silvery tan buckling. They're adorable and doing well. I wish there was a way to post a picture.

[TNHawke]

Yay for laying birds and scared off trespassers!

Geese do make good watch dogs. My African Goose, George (who was actually female, lol) would honk when she saw something going on until one of us would step out on the back porch and have a look around. If there was an issue, we took care of it, but most of the time it wasn't anything to worry about, and so this would happen:

HONK!
George!
HONK!
GEORGE!
HONK!
GEORGE!

and then she would quiet down, having made contact with her flock.

I also taught her how to chase the husky so that she wouldn't get eaten by him. When I first brought George home, she was half grown, and Jerry, the husky went to sniff at her. So I ran towards Jerry with my arms spread out, yelling. Within 3 times, George was imitating me, and Jerry was terrified of going near the goose!
We even had a meter reader knock on the door one time and ask if our goose was going to eat him. We told him that the worst she would do was honk at him, Africans are much nicer than Tolouse.


For photos, take some pictures, upload to photobucket or whatever and then put the URL into the img code.