LGD or Donkey?

[mizzymoo]

We found a dead fawn in our goat pasture yesterday morning. It had obviously been killed by coyotes. Our goats go up at night but I'm worried for their safety. Our fence is a 4-board horse fence with dog wire. We are very surprised coyotes could get in there. Should we get a donkey or livestock guard dog? I don't have experience with either. Thanks for the input!

[Alice In TX/MO]

I vote for dog. I've heard bad stories about donkeys and goat kids.

[SkizzlePig]

Originally Posted by mizzymoo

Our goats go up at night but I'm worried for their safety.

What do you mean by "... go up at night"?

[Doug Hodges]

Definitely Dog. Also heard bad stories about donkeys


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[goodatit]

Originally Posted by mizzymoo

We found a dead fawn in our goat pasture yesterday morning. It had obviously been killed by coyotes. Our goats go up at night but I'm worried for their safety. Our fence is a 4-board horse fence with dog wire. We are very surprised coyotes could get in there. Should we get a donkey or livestock guard dog? I don't have experience with either. Thanks for the input!

your goats go up where at night?

[nehimama]

A donkey that is not bonded to your goats may very well be the "predator" that kills them! I vote for a working LGD.

[poppypatchFarm]

Dog definitely. We have had both. Our donkeys(had five of them, 3 standard, 2 mini) did not live directly in the goat pens but were kept in surrounding field. They did nothing for coyotes. I would actually see coyotes walking between the donkeys in the field without any reaction from them so we got a LGD and no more coyotes.
The other big issue was the upkeep on the donkeys. They need to have their hooves trimmed regularly and donkeys are known for being asses(literally) about it. Our minis could be done with just a little struggle but with the full-sized ones it was difficult with their behavior to find a farrier willing to accept without them being sedated. We ended up having to sedate them to get their hooves trimmed which made their upkeep very expensive. We ended up giving all the donkeys away…that was a good day!

[poppypatchFarm]

Originally Posted by goodatit

your goats go up where at night?

Assuming they "go up to" the barn/shelter at night.

[Frosted Mini's]

I have a llama with my bucks. She is very good at protecting them. Any strange animal on the other side of the fence and she will run over and make sure it won't bother them. She can be downright scary in a situation she is unsure of (like one night when my husband went out in dark clothes and she didn't recognize him!).

[mizzymoo]

We put the goats up in a barn stall at night. Does a dog have to be raised with them or can I get a full grown dog? Don't want to wait a year for them to get out of puppy stage.

[Clovers_Clan]

It generally works best to get a pup from a breeder who raises them with goats so they are already in training and let them grow up and bond with your herd. You can get an adult but be very careful selecting. A good LGD is worth its weight in gold and they don't come up for sale or rehoming often. The ones you do find up for sale might be up for sale because they aren't working out as LGs. I say this because I have two LGDs. One you could trust completely and the other is just okay. She's too rambunctious, so she patrols the paddocks where the goats aren't. Its still helpful but not fully effective. When you go to look at a dog be sure to observe it around a herd, do the goats seem relaxed or do they move away from the dog? And never get a dog without seeing for yourself. If you go to look at a dog and its been separated from a herd thats a red flag, good dogs don't want to be away from their herd.

Oh, and yes, I too have heard many stories about donkeys turning on goats, especially fighting over food.

[mizzymoo]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Looks like a LGD is in our future. We were able to shoot 2 coyotes last night so hopefully our goats will be okay for awhile.

[Wonderland]

I vote dog, too. I actually just did a video about this very subject the other day: http://homesteadeducation.com/2015/0...endly-farming/

One thing you should for sure not do is get an intact male llama or donkey. That's a recipe for disaster.

[dozedotz]

I vote for the dog, too. We got VERY lucky and bought our first LGD from Emily Dixon. Bonnie was one of Jill's pups that did not sell and Emily kept her. Bonnie was extra because her mom and dad were already working on Emily's farm. However, even though she did not have the BIG job, she learned from her parents. IF and I think that is a big IF, you can get a deal like that...grab it! Bonnie is worth her weight in gold and she also trained Beau from 10 weeks old when we got him to guard the pen where we were planning on housing our own bucks. So, she has done double duty.

[Phil V.]

Go with an LGD. A friend lost her best Alpine doe to 2 mini mules that her husband had at the time. He still hears about it 25 years later.

[Backfourty,MI.]

I vote LGD also!
You don't have your location up but I know of someone that has an LGD that is 9 months old that she is looking to rehome since for some reason she got a male & already had 3 other male LGD's.
They raise some kind of heritage breed sheep & the dog has been in wih some she since she got him at 8 weeks of age.
Don't know much else but could get her contact info.

I had 1 pup left from our Karakachan LGD litter but she just sold today.

[Aimee]

Just out of curiosity, what are these bad things that donkeys do? I got rid of my LGD because she was chewing on the goats and got two donkeys. My donkeys are doing pretty good at bonding with the goats. They all sleep in the same building and are usually in the same area of the pasture together.

[marusempai]

I have heard of donkeys biting, kicking, picking up and throwing, and chasing goats out of shelters/away from food. Obviously there are good guard donkeys out there. But most goats are so much smaller than most donkeys that a bad one can be deadly.

[colemangirly]

I have 2 lgd pups left. They are born and raised with goats and chickens. Located in south central Missouri. 3/4 Anatolian and 1/4 Karakachan. ImageUploadedByHomesteading Today1422220633.637157.jpg

[nehimama]

We learned the hard way many, many years ago. An ungelded male donkey on our farm killed several young lambs before we realized it was him. We then penned the sheep and the donkeys separately. The donkey still killed coyotes and stray dogs, but the sheep & lambs were safe from him.