Funnily enough, I have considered Alpacas, but they're quite expensive. I was considering getting an Alpaca to help guard the hens that I intend on getting. But seemed crazy buying $500 to $1000 animals to guard a handful of $3 animals. Although they apparently make great guard animals for chickens. They'll chase off coyotes, foxes and racoons. Plenty of racoons around, see their footprints all next to the stream beds... And I've been told lots of coyotes although I've never seen them. Racoons are tricky buggers, apparently they quickly learn how to undo latches to get into chicken runs
Alpaca to guard a chicken. how the **** does that work? Just get a cow. they do the same thing i expect. anyway mate, i'd advise you to take care cos chickens are salmonella farms but you lot nuke everything to sterilise eggs, meat etc. you have to keep them in a fridge.
Alpacas will run off anything remotely doglike. Natural instinct. I guess because instinctual to protect their young. Cows may not be threatened by the predators around me, but they wouldn't protect the chickens. Alpacas will guard whoever they're kept with: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_llama Some people keep geese as guard animals for chickens... Geese don't tend to be much use against coyotes or racoons though. They can scare off a fox or a weasel but tend to become dinner to anything bigger. One of the great things about keeping my own chickens is I would be able to keep them like in the UK. The reason American eggs have to be refrigerated and British ones don't is because the egg has a natural protective membrane over the shell. In Britain, dirt is gently rubbed off the eggs. In America they get power washed, which removes the protective membrane and allows bacteria to get into the eggs through the shell. Any hens I kept, I'd just collect the eggs and eat as needed. I wouldn't go through with this extreme cleaning step that removes the protective coating. There would be no refrigeration necessary for me.
Also, we have a butt-load of chiggers and ticks on our property. I'm going to fence off an acre or two around the house to keep deer out (that will keep chiggers and ticks out too because they're hitch a ride on the deer). Chickens are tick eating machines. They also eat the adult chiggers (it's the microscopic young that bite, but if you kill the adults there are no young). Can't de-chigger the entire woods, but with the help of chickens I hope to de-chigger the are around the house.
I was in a place where they got airplanes to bomb the entire woods with bug spray to kill it all so bugs wouldn't fly into their factory. all legal apparently. I was also talking to a lad who had two freezer out the back and hunted deer on a 5o acre forest they rented in west virginia. with a bow as well. Nothing but venison for that lad.
Someone has put up deer stands in our woods. I asked the guy who we bought the land from and he said he hadn't given anyone permission. I'm going to have to take the deer stands down and put up no trespassing signs before we move in. I don't want to get shot by a hunter while walking through my "backyard". Going to have kids and dogs running around, can't have hunting going on. Whoever did it cut down a bunch of trees to make a clearing and there is lots of small maize scattered around they used for bait... This was all done before we bought it, but someone did all that without asking permission of the previous landowner which is pretty crappy. Need to kick them out as soon as possible. Unlikely they use bows. Most hunters around here use guns. If they're unsporting enough to throw bait around for the deer, I doubt they're sporting enough to use a bow. Deer hunting season is something like November, I think, so just before our house will be finished.
Yeah, but if thye put up hides then they probably rented the land in the past and they guy just isn't admitting it. better rent it and pay the tax then let it cost money right?
It could be a mistake on the hunters part too. At the end of our property is a 12 acre property with no house on it. It is possible that that land was purchased for hunting from and they crossed over into ours without checking. I know they're coming from that land because they left themselves pink markers in the trees leading onto my property to one of the stands. Obviously as a trail to find their way back. Naturally i removed all those markers already. That's one stand. That's a fancy metal freestanding one with a proper ladder, etc. I imagine it cost them a lot of money. I'm going to dismantle it for them, but not throw it away. I'm sure they'll be back for it. Some people here have told me I should sell it, but I'm not that mean, especially if it is just a mistake and they thought they were on the other property. If they put another one up after the no trespassing signs go up... Then I'll toss it, or sell it. There's another one near the front of our property nearer the road that I think people must have come from the road to set up. It looks older and almost like a treehouse.... All just nailed into a tree. Very DIY looking.
Milk will be the guy sitting on his porch saying git orf ma propertae Boh. Spitting tobaccy and stroking his 12 gauge