Predators

Well it finally happened. I have not seen any coyotes around the farm, although one can hear them. Every day, I walk through my animals and check for things out of place. I had been away for a few days to a Holistic Management conference, so at the earliest opportunity on my return, I took a walk. I check fences, look for sick animals, check feed, just... look around. and observe. Well I found a blood spot. Fresh.

My heart raced. I walked more carefully, scanning the ground for more signs. Quickly, I found another spot

And with that spot, a 2" piece of fleece. Soft. Short. LAMB. I knew that some of the sheep might be bred, due to a ram that got out. Rams and bucks and bulls, they always get out. So I was prepared for an early lamb or 2. I was not prepared for a predator that struck so quick and silent. The skin was soft, not frozen. This was an early morning kill. Was the lamb born dead? I don't know. I almost think not, due to the amount of blood I found. The herd didn't really seem too upset. I did a perimeter check and found tracks coming in, and going out of the mesh fence

What was it? A fox? a coyote? I am not sure, but I lean towards coyote. I followed the tracks. They wondered, this way and that. I found a few blood spots next to tracks, but no other evidence of a lamb. Nothing. There was a spot where my unwelcome diner had relieved itself. Eventually my trail ran through one of my camps again and I lost it - too many little hoof prints to distinguish the predator tracks.

The next day, we had a blizzard. Lots of snow covered up the tracks. A day after the blizzard I went to see what else I could find

Fresh tracks! And some scat in one of my pastures

I scanned the places where he had come into the paddocks. Did he jump? Or crawl through? Foxes can fit through some pretty small holes, they will fit through a mesh fence. Some predator specialists say that coyotes don't jump, preferring to crawl under. I found, at long last, a single hair, caught in the mesh, fairly high up. He must have jumped.

His tracks disappeared into the sunset.

But I know he will be back. And I will be ready. I hope to pick up a Llama later this week, and I have managed to obtain 2 adult Livestock Guardian dogs on a loan. I hope that they will serve me until I can get a pup and get the pup trained through the summer for next year.

I don't hate predators. They are only doing what they do best, what they evolved to do over millions of years. Through our meddling in Nature, we have created an abundance of prey. I can just imagine this guy standing outside my fence, staring in wonder at the goats and sheep, all so neatly contained by the fence. All so tempting and edible. But with my Llama and my dogs, I hope to convince him to go dine on rabbits, deer and gophers instead.

We have babies!

I am not advocating winter 'kidding'. I like to try and match my animals up to a more natural time for kidding, such as Spring when the deer are having babies. But the bucks had their own idea. Excitement got the better of them on August 31/11 and they broke out of their pen. One afternoon of frolicking and I have 7 healthy babies from 4 does. When the bucks went out at the appointed time at the end of November, they sported breeding harnesses with color markers, so that I would be able to record which does were covered when. And of course there were a few that, at the end of the 45 day breeding cycle, didn't have any crayon marking on them at all. So towards the middle of January, 2 weeks before these girls were due, I sorted them off and penned them where I could keep an eye on them. Thankfully the weather stayed remarkably mild, and January 25th we welcomed our first 'Pilgrims'. After a week in the pen with their moms, I turned them into a bigger pen

Little girl explores snow

La Mancha with her 2 babies. LaBoer :-)

A very nice little buckling

This is one of Mancha's daughters with her first kids

A nice little doeling explores the ground

These are the first kids from my registered bucks, Balmaur Vincente and Balmaur Sidney, or Bob and Joe as they are known around here. :-) 

If this is a sampling of what's to come in the Spring, I am very excited to meet the rest of their progeny.