SE Manitoba | eorancher - 2/26/2021 20:27
Fall calving cows are still out on the range and on their own and heifers are kept in nearby pasture and checked 2 to 3 times a day and at night if one is looking close. Spring cows are being feed in hay fields checked in the morning and night and heifers the same as above. Would also like to have the spring cows out on range to calve to, but need to get bred early before the cows move to rough summer range. The increasing local wolf population may move all calving inside for us.
Two suggestions - - - - (here I'm allowed to kill animals dangerous to my animals) invite your buddies for 'hunting parties' and offer steak dinners for the gang (dunno if you're allowed to pay for kills - - - - but beef might work!).
2. Get some aggressive livestock guard dogs. This is a longer term project but these boys and girls patrol 24/7 and all they take is feed (lots of that - - - - sorry (3 of them knock off a 40# bag in a week or thereabouts!).
There are some breeds that will even go after the predators - - - the ones I have here are more the 'let the boss know there is a problem'.
Mine protect multiple animal species because that's how they were raised (seems to take a couple generations to get them 'tuned' well to your particular operation.
I'm not really an expert on LGDs (livestock guard dogs) but have been running them for some over 5 years. |
Calving on large herds
