Farm Fresh Blog

The Farm Fresh Forensics book was released this week and your support humbles me to the core. I have been moved to tears so many times this week by the outpouring of love sent by you, my dear readers who follow this blog. Some of you have been with us since the beginning and now you're part of the family. Some of you just joined recently and you've already become family. This first book is for you. It is for all of you who wrote to tell me how much a blog post gave you a much-needed laugh in the middle of a bad time. It is for the people who have written to say, "I'm going through a rough patch in life right now, can you tell me a funny story tomorrow?" This book is for all the first responders who have written to tell me how much they needed to hear that someone shares their gut-wrenching experiences and that if they just keep trudging forward, they will laugh again.

I wrote this book for all you readers who are also farmers and ranchers. You write to express how much you appreciate the fact that someone else shares your same experiences. We are not wallowing in blood and mud alone! We have each other. We share the same struggles, the same triumphs, the same laughs. We are the same tribe.

This book is also for all you who have written to say that you want to live on a farm but can't, so you enjoy mine. It is for all the fans of Lily, Ranger, Trace, Cowboy and Briar, people who follow the stories of simple ranch dogs. I am still flabberghasted that Briar has fans as far away as Australia and South Africa.

Your support both humbles and terrifies me. Within two days Farm Fresh Forensics was the #1 New Release in its category on Amazon. Truthfully, who knows how many books were actually released in the category recently? I'm sure Amazon markets to its advantage, but nevertheless, the sales are climbing and it's all because of you. You, my dear tribe of readers, humble me. And I'm terrified. I hope this is the book you've wanted. It does pull in some of the best blogs but is so much more. The Farm Fresh Forensics book gives you the backstory and ties things together. Because life doesn't have a beginning and an end, but a book does, I began the book at the start of my CSI career and the beginning of the farm. The book ends when we made the final move to the ranch in north Texas. The dogs are a big part of the Farm Fresh Forensics book. They became such a focus that I realized they needed their own book. Butterflies On A Turd, sequel to Farm Fresh Forensics, will also highlight ranch life, but will focus more on the dogs and their jobs here in north Texas.

The promotional materials for Farm Fresh Forensics should arrive in the mail tomorrow - bookmarks, bookplates, coffee mugs, and at least one canvas tote bag. As soon as they arrive I'll be able to start sending out your swag! If you take a "shelfie" (a photo of your print book or ebook) and send it to me via social media or email, I'll send you a bookmark and put you in the drawing for coffee mugs or a canvas tote bag. Not only does it get the word out on social media to people who have never heard of Farm Fresh Forensics, but it allows me the chance to give something back to you. Words cannot express how much I dearly appreciate all of you.

My wizard tells me that I need to include a link to Amazon. Below is the link to the ebook. The print book is also available through Amazon. I believe they have them linked on Matchbook so if you buy the print book you can get the ebook for $0.99. The print book is available now but the kindle book won't be released until April 6. I tried to move that forward but I can't. I ordered a copy of the ebook for myself so as soon as its downloaded onto my kindle then I'll let you know. It's possible that they may move up the release it to March 30th.  Thank you again for being part of my tribe.

https://www.amazon.com/Farm-Fresh-Forensics-Between-Barnyard-ebook/dp/B07BPBZWPT/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1522078084&sr=1

(It's here! It's here! The first book is out! I'm so excited!)

CSI meets Green Acres in The Shack!

When a Crime Scene Investigator also takes up ranching, life lies somewhere between the barnyard and the Body Farm, where the death of a chicken can turn into a full scale murder investigation. Farm Fresh Forensics is the memoir of a Crime Scene Investigator juggling farm life at home with the bloody work of murder in a major metropolitan city at night.

With one foot in the trench of tragedy and the other in a corral of comedy Farm Fresh Forensics invites the reader to slip under the yellow crime scene tape and experience the real stories behind the 5 o'clock news.

Few places better illustrate the circle of life than a barnyard where a Border Collie is the professor and a goat can earn his degree in the field of forensics. This is a story of growth. It is the growth of a Crime Scene Investigator, the evolution of a rancher, and the awakening of faith.

Get your Farm Fresh Forensics SWAG!

Send out a "shelfie" on social media with the hashtags #farmfreshforensics #sheridanrowelangford, then in the feedback section here, or through private messaging on Facebook, send me your mailing address and we'll mail you a free bookmark. This will enter you in a drawing for a Farm Fresh Forensics coffee mug, and another drawing for a canvas tote bag!

What qualifies as a "shelfie?"  Darned near any photograph of you, or your dog, or your cat, or your bookshelf with a copy of Farm Fresh Forensics qualifies as a "shelfie."

What if you aren't on social media? No worries! Shoot me an email in the feedback section here and we'll make sure you get your bookmark and are entered in the drawings for the coffee mugs and tote bags.

Farm Fresh Forensics is available in both print and ebook on Amazon. It's also available in Kindle Matchbook, so if you purchase a print copy of the book, Amazon will give you the ebook copy for $0.99! The ebook is also set up to allow lending.

Farm Fresh Forensics is available on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1985301830

If you have a moment, go check out my author website at www.sheridanrowelangford.com. I'll keep you posted there on the cool swag as it becomes available. I picked designs of both the front cover and of Briar. If you look at the Briar's eyes banner on the author website you can see the photo used for the front of the bookmarks. The two different designs were made in the coffee mugs available for the drawings. One is the front cover of Lily, the Border Collie, in the crime scene tape and the other is the Briar's eyes banner. The canvas tote bag in the drawing has the Briar's eyes banner logo. They may make one available later with the Border Collie in the crime scene tape logo.

There are also bookplates available. If you want a signed book but can't get to a booksigning, drop me a note and I'll pop a signed bookplate in the mail for you. The bookplate has the image of the front cover of the book.

The Mini-Me is settling into a routine. At night Bramble, the Livestock Guardian Dog puppy, still sleeps in a cage inside the sheep pens with a couple of dairy goats and Judge, the Anatolian Shepherd who guards the pens at night. During the day Judge is released to guard the sheep in the pasture and Bramble is left in the pen to watch the sheep maternity ward. Today this particular batch of lambs was released into the barnyard. Bramble got to spend a little time out with them under supervision.

She got too close to the lambs. She was sent packing.

Back at the barn she found her friend, Rosie the Dairy Goat.

And she found her roommate!

Judge has finally accepted her unabashed worship and genuinely enjoys her company. One day these two will be working partners. In the mean time he'll let her make her mistakes, then kiss her nose, and show her how to be a Livestock Guardian Dog.

She was not the Chinese take-out that Judge was expecting. We arrived home late Sunday evening with the new Livestock Guardian Dog puppy. Briar and Judge eagerly escorted the truck down the driveway in hopes of getting first dibs on the expected doggy bag from whatever restaurant we'd stopped at for supper. They expected Chinese. They did not expect a little sister.

A veteran of new puppies, Briar greeted the pup with more enthusiasm than she normally musters up for Border Collie puppies. I suppose in her opinion the ragged ball of fluff was actually a real dog this time, and not some black & white weasel.

Judge was not nearly as open-minded. The puppy walked forward to greet him and he fell backward over himself lest it give him white dog cooties. I know for a fact that Judge eats decomposing forest animals. His standards aren't high, so his opinion of Bramble was pretty low.

But suck it up, Buttercup. We don't get to choose siblings or dorm roommates. I set Bramble up in a stout pen that was placed inside a stall with an attached run for livestock. Two dairy goats and Judge were elected to become the unwilling roommates. The goats are with her day and night, and the Anatolian is with the pup all night. The goats spent the first night staring at her in disapproval. Judge ignored her. He wouldn't even come into the stall. On the second night she recognized him as her bunkmate and greeted him enthusiastically. He growled at her and walked outside.

Not to be discouraged, she extended the olive branch the next night too. He walked into the stall, gave a weak wag of the tail and walked past her. On the fourth night she eagerly greeted him again when he walked in. Judge gave her a decent tail wag and plopped down beside her kennel to sleep.

This morning he assumed his dayshift responsibilities with Briar while the pup was on her morning break, cavorting with her new friends, the herding dogs.

They galloped past Judge and she screeched to a halt when she recognized her roommate.

He greeted her with all the enthusiasm of a soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Then he cracked. The big dog sneaked in a tail wag and an ear kiss before sending the puppy off to play.

I think these two will pair well together in the future as guard dog partners. And in the mean time, she's safe at night with her dairy goats and her bodyguard.

Except for the rustle of a bird here and there, the forest was quiet. I waited. And I waited. Then I did what everyone waiting alone in the woods does - I checked to see how many bars I had. One bar! Woo hoo! I hadn't found the Anatolians, but I had found the next best thing. A cell phone sweet spot. So I checked Facebook. Checked my email. Checked Twitter. Checked Facebook again. The forest was still quiet. Nothing. The Anatolians had already been gone for 30 hours. Even on a good day my mind jumps to catastrophic expectations. I had already mentally explored every possible way for them to get killed in a five mile radius. It's an astonishing large number. I played out the ramifications. Two buddies lost. Two and a half years wasted. One aging dog left to cover all the responsibilities. If I lost that dog none of my sheep or chickens would be able to safely leave the barnyard.

I checked again. Still one bar. I started scrolling ads for Pyrenees puppies in Texas. I did a search for Pyrenees/Komondor, like Briar. Nothing. Try Great Pyrenees. Jackpot. Any large generic white dog is tagged a Great Pyrenees. After I sorted those out I then sorted by purebred and crossbred. If I know the breeder I don't mind getting an LGD crossbred. Briar is an LGD mix. (Weeks earlier I had checked with Briar's breeder. She didn't have anything available yet. I assured her I was in no rush. One dead calf and two missing Anatolians later and I was in a rush.) So since I didn't know the breeders, the only assurance I had that the pup was an LGD breed, was for me to get a purebred Great Pyrenees. That sorted out a lot more ads. Then I had to sort by puppies from working parents that had been socialized to livestock. That knocked down the field considerably. I finally had a handful of advertisements for Great Pyrenees puppies that were clearly from a working background. The final search. Badger faces?

Briar has a little superhero mask. I've always liked that. I'm sure that if my first LGD had been solid white I would probably prefer all white, but as it was, the cherry on the sundae of my search was a badger face. A pure white pup was not a deal breaker. Obviously color means nothing, but if you're sorting, you may as well admit you like that super hero mask. A search on badger faced female Great Pyrenees pups across Texas produced two ads. I sat in the forest and debated. Did I really want to deal with getting another dog? Another freaking dog. Even I groaned. Then visions of the dead calf drifted into my head. I sent out two emails.

Here's the reality. The cold hard reality that most pet people don't understand is that these dogs are not pets. They're not. Yes, they're family members and we can make loving pets out of them, but if I just needed a pet, I'd go to an animal rescue and I'd only have three freaking dogs. That's it. No more. But I don't. I have a ranch. I have a ranch where cattle, sheep, goats and chickens spread out over a pretty broad wooded area. I must have the Border Collies to control the livestock and guardian dogs to patrol for predators. So why don't we just shoot all the coyotes? Son wanted to know that. He's a hunter and cannot understand why we don't just call, bait, trap, and shoot every coyote we find. I can argue with him until I'm blue in the face about the research which shows that it doesn't work but let's take another approach. Are you going to kill every predator that walks and flies?

After you shoot every coyote, cougar and bobcat, are you then going to kill every raccoon, oppossum and skunk? And then every vulture? I have a friend who loses newborn calves every year to vultures. Are you going to kill every vulture that circles above? When does it stop?

If my livestock were locked in a small area I'd be able to just have one Livestock Guardian Dog surrounded by hotwire. Briar grew up that way and it was very effective. But my livestock now have access to several hundred heavily wooded acres. I cannot put hotwire on the top and bottom of all that, and I will not sit out there with a rifle and kill every predator that moves. So Saturday I was reduced to sitting in the forest in an RTV waiting for my husband to clear an area on foot because it was too wild for a wheeled vehicle. I dropped him off at one point with plans to pick him up at another. He was looking for two missing Anatolians and a missing bull. (No, don't ask. They were not together.)

He met me at the creek, without dogs or bull. I told him about the ads. He grunted. He wanted an older, already working Pyrenees, but that won't fit into our household. We'd have to start with a puppy. That's another thing pet people don't understand. Why do you have so many dogs? Why don't you just re-home the old ones and the disabled ones? You could just keep the dogs that are currently working.

Seriously? That's like working for a company for 20 years and having them fire you with no retirement package. Except for two dogs that I re-homed WITH MY MOTHER because of bitch fights in the household, and one pyschotic police dog who actively hunted my sheep, we don't re-home retired dogs. They've earned that retirement. All our dogs get a nice retirement package where they get a comfortable life. Chores are modified so they still get to participate and feel like contributing members of the team. The half-blind, deaf double merle dog had extenuating circumstances and we took her on knowing that she would only be a pet. She and the Labrador are the only dogs here that could be considered pets-only. Everyone else either works, did work, or is training to work.

So let's circle to the other argument. Why don't you just trash both roaming Anatolians and get something that stays home? No. Just. No. First off, all LGD breeds roam. Some breeds may have a tendency to stay closer to the flock than others, but don't fool yourself. They all roam. People don't call them "Disa-Pyrs" for nothing. That said, I do admit I made the mistake of getting siblings. I should have gotten one brother, and then later gotten another. Separately the Anatolian brothers are great. They pair with the old Pyrenees cross and stay close to the flock. But when the brothers get together they cancel each other out. I no longer have three dogs, I only have one dog. The other two are frat boys on spring break. After the calf was killed and I actively needed them to be able to run and chase coyotes away from a broader area, they were able to handle only one day of being together. The second day they were gone for six hours, so I clipped their wings and separated them again. The next morning Jury went to great trouble to climb out of his prison and convince his brother to go walkabout. They were gone a day and a half.

No more chances. The little bastards will be separated and stay in their day shift/night shift routine which appears to work. The Anatolians left shortly before 8 am on Friday morning. We spent all day Saturday searching for them. It's physically impossible to hunt that area on a vehicle. It's even difficult on horseback because of the meandering creek. We have a drone to cover a lot of it. After covering as much on foot and ATV as possible, we drove around to surrounding ranches and talked to every neighbor, stranger, and oilfield worker we could find. One of the dogs was sighted almost 5 miles away. At 3:30 pm we went back home for lunch. At 4 pm Judge trotted up as if he hadn't been gone. By 5 pm Jury returned. They were both home safely but the their walkabout had shined a light on the chink in the armor. It was more than a chink. It was a big gaping hole. The boys just aren't ready to handle the job by themselves yet. If we lose Briar to accident or old age, we are shit out of luck. At 5:15 pm I checked my email. One 9 week old badger faced female Pyrenees pup was still available. Raised with goats and chickens. She sent me pictures.

I emailed back. Sold.  I arranged to pick her up in East Texas on Sunday afternoon. Meet Bramble. Or as my friend, Gina, has dubbed her: Briar 2.0

Briar now has a mini-me!

It's time for the gloves to come off. I accept that we live in a remote area and choose to raise livestock in a place that is thick with predators. I do not hunt them. It's tempting when coyotes surround the barnyard and sing as they gather up and point at my sheep like they're standing in line at a cafeteria. "I'll have an order of the sheep please, with a sidedish of goat." It's tempting to shoot at them but I don't. I let the Livestock Guardian Dogs do their jobs.

As long as the stock stays close to the dogs, and vice versa, they're safe. Because the sheep are lambing soon I have limited their grazing in the heavily wooded pastures and moved them to a small pasture below the barnyard where I can keep an eye on them and it's a short run to safety. I'm a 'live and let live' person but any predator caught in active pursuit of my sheep will be shot - if the Livestock Guardian Dogs don't get him first.

But what about the cattle?

A healthy adult cow can pretty much take care of itself but calves are defenseless. A mother cow is a force to be reckoned with and as long as the calves stay close to the herd they are safe. The entire herd will run to their defense. But when a cow leaves the group to sneak away and give birth, she and her baby are most vulnerable. Because of this we try to keep close tabs on imminent births, so yesterday when IB-1 didn't come up we loaded up in the RTV and went out in search of her. The buzzards led us to the crime scene.

Poor IB-1 had chosen to give birth on a sand bar in the creek. The creek is barely running now so the water wasn't a danger. The danger is the dry creek itself. It is a predator superhighway. The banks are very steep making it a veritable killing field because once inside the creek, the predators can swarm down and the prey cannot climb back up fast enough. From what we could piece together of the crime scene it appears that IB-1 had a successful birth and passed the afterbirth. This meant the baby probably nursed but it was highly unlikely the baby was able to climb the steep banks to leave the birth site. They were discovered by a pack of coyotes and the baby was killed. It appears that IB-1 attempted to protect her baby and smash the coyotes into the sand. I dearly hope she was successful. She was not able to save her calf though, and she appears to have injuries on her rear end. She would not let us catch her for a closer inspection. We attempted to drive her toward the barnyard but she circled back to stay with what remained of her dead calf. It broke my heart. It broke my heart to imagine what she went through. It broke my heart to know the mother stood by and waited while they ate her calf.

And we still have more cows calving. The coyotes were so successful so they will certainly double their efforts to take calves and/or birthing mothers. The knee-jerk reaction is to start killing coyotes but that isn't the answer. We can shoot one pack and another will move in. We must somehow convince the pack here that it isn't safe for them to hang around the livestock. To do this we moved the birthing cows into the sheep pasture and we unleashed the dogs. "Let slip the dogs of war."

Because the Anatolian Shepherds tend to roam and hunt varmits when they are together, we normally keep them separated, pairing one with Briar while we confine the other. Jury normally does night shift with Briar while Judge is locked in the pens with the sheep. Briar stays close to the barnyard. The boys are drawn to address a threat by galloping out and hunting it down. I discourage this behavior. You cannot protect the sheep if you are not WITH the sheep. But yesterday, as I stood over the remains of that poor little calf, it was time to pull the gloves off and give in to their natural tendency to pursue those damned coyotes. I haven't been able to stop it anyway so during calving and lambing I may as well use it to my advantage. We have no close neighbors and it isn't hunting season so if they do happen to get off the property they aren't likely to run into anyone.

So yesterday we took off the gloves, and we took off the bells. The Livestock Guardian Dogs wear bells on their collars. When we moved here we put bells on the dogs and the dairy goats so the predators didn't know whether the bell belonged to a meal or a marine. The bells clang as the dogs run. Yesterday we took off the bells so the dogs could run silently through the forest. We turned them together and the boys ambled off to the pasture side by side. Thirty minutes later Judge was lying with calves and Jury was lying with the horses. At dusk they were gone. I didn't hear any coyotes last night.

Unaware she's on the menu, a calf danced and played in the sunshine this morning.

I walked outside to watch her and saw that she wasn't alone - and she's no longer on the menu.

The rain, ice, and snow last week stressed my little Marek's infected flock of Blue-Laced Red Wyandottes.  I can already see the twisted fingers of disease reaching for them. Yesterday I had to shoot my rooster. By evening I had to help a hen climb into the coop. One by one the disease will take them. As I was kicking rocks I gave it some thought. If they're gonna die anyway, what the hell, let 'em live a little. So I started a chicken bucket list.

They have a rather spacious L-shaped chicken yard which contains a little aluminum quonset hut for daytime shelter and a small fenced coop with a ladder leading up to their raised coop. This is more space than many chickens see their entire lives. But there's a whole world on the other side of the bars. If you're gonna die anyway, you may as well experience it. There is little point in trying to keep them quarantined because their feathers and dander have already blown all over the property. My adult chickens were vaccinated as chicks. Thus far they show no signs of having contracted the disease.

So today I opened the gate.

The youngsters were a bit hesitant at first but soon walked out to peck and scratch along the opposite side of their fence. Untouched grass. Uncharted territory. Even as I watched them enjoy themselves, I saw the signs. This little hen with the copper head will be next. I had to help her into the coop last night.

Today she walks and then plops down to rest. Her legs can't hold her up for long. But she's having a good time, so who am I to say she can't go with the others.

This dark blue may be after her. I noticed her crouching a bit more than before. After losing four birds already, I'm beginning to see the early warning signs. It starts with a weakness in the legs and then progresses.

But for today, everyone got an outing. They scratched and ate grass until they were ready to wander back to their hut. I shut the gate and promised them another outing tomorrow. Perhaps they can become free-range chickens before they die. We can all live our lives waiting to die, or we can live our lives celebrating life. It's your choice.

A farm crawls into a cocoon during the rain, peeking out only to demand more hay. After a week of wet weather though, even the most stubborn are moved to get out and see what the rains have spawned.

New life. The ponds and puddles are awake with frogs. Even the low temperatures don't slow their chatter. This is the first significant amount of rain we've seen in four months. The frogs must make haste. Like us, they don't know how long the water will last. The pastures and forest are beginning to green up again. The ewes are close to lambing so they've been locked in the barnyard and lower pasture. There isn't much grass there but after a week of rain, the pasture is waking up. I'd prefer not to have any livestock on it yet but that isn't possible this year, so we'll have to make do.

The sheep shuffle out to graze in the gray drizzle. The goats are unwilling participants, but have come because they're tired of standing in the barn. And peer pressure. Everyone else is going. The sheep are fine with the light rain so the goats grumble but walk along.

The Livestock Guardian Dogs are soaked. One lies beside the pond chewing a cow's leg that his brother dragged up one night. It remains a big mystery. No one seems to be missing a cow. The leg was complete - hip to hoof. Full grown cow. Who knows? We chalk it up to just one more mystery that may sort itself out in time. Until then the dogs enjoy chewing it like an all-day sucker.

Briar settles down on the tree line to supervise. She has a good view from here.

The rain gets a little harder. Time to save the camera. Briar walks behind me. Judge and the sheep stay. As I walk away they are swallowed by the mist. Like the frogs, we are all thankful for the rain.

It's a long lonely walk, that walk into the forest with a rifle. The Livestock Guardian Dog was upset so I let her come. Closure. A gray mist hung on the forest and my boots were silent save for the occasional squish when leaves gave way to mud. The dog kept bumping my bag. It tugged at my heart but I kept walking. She switched sides and bumped at the rifle. I paused to smile into her eyes and pat her head. She's a good dog. Then I shifted my grip on the bag and walked on. The dog followed me with worried eyes. She was determined to come anyway. The dog is scared of guns so I admired her pluck.

Two deer swung their heads up to gape at me. I stopped. The dog stopped. The does stared. I looked around. This place was as good as any. I stepped off the path and into the forest. The branches of a cedar draped to the ground and provided the perfect little nesting place. I set the bag down. Briar was most relieved. She stuck her great head into the bag. Yep. He was still there. Still sick. It bothered her. He couldn't walk. The tremors had taken over. I gently took the dog by the collar to keep her out of the way and squeezed the trigger.

This is the cost.

This is why we do it.

This is why you vaccinate.

In December we bought eight Blue-Laced Red Wyandotte chickens from a big breeder in Central Texas. I found the breeder online and her website looked quite professional. She specialized in rare and exotic birds. I contacted her and asked to be placed on a waiting list for spring chicks. She said she had juvenile birds available and I could buy those now if I didn't want to wait. Well, okay then. We hustled to get a pen and a coop ready, then we drove 4 hours one way in driving rain to pick up 8 birds - two roosters and six hens. So lovely I couldn't take my eyes off them, the little birds were exactly what I wanted.

I got the birds home and set them up in their new coop. They loved the grass and the sunshine. Eleven days later the first hen went down. I opened the coop door to find her paralyzed. In a panic I called the breeder. She assured me that I must have let the birds get too cold and her peers had crushed her. I was crushed. I nursed the bird for a week but it was obvious she wasn't going to survive. I took her for a walk with a rifle.

A week later another hen went down. Same symptoms. This was clearly not a case of being crushed by peers. Suspecting Marek's disease I contacted my vet to have the bird culled and shipped to Texas A&M for necropsy. And I contacted the breeder. She assured me it could not be Marek's disease, but if it was, the birds caught it at my place.  Not likely. My adult birds were vaccinated. She said she'd been losing birds too, but the symptoms weren't exactly the same. She then told me that she was opposed to vaccinating her birds for Marek's disease because most of her customers wanted organic birds. Do what?

It never occurred to me when I paid $190 for 8 birds that they were not vaccinated. Even the big commercial hatcheries will vaccinate. One would expect a high dollar breeder to vaccinate. One would be wrong.

After the loss of the first hen I learned more than I ever wanted to know about Marek's disease in chickens. I researched absolutely everything I could find on the virus and the more I learned the more I was convinced my birds were infected with Marek's Disease Virus. My gorgeous splash rooster died before the second hen had even arrived at the university for testing.

The test results came back positive. My birds were infected with the Marek's virus. One by one they would die. Or they wouldn't, but they would be carriers. I had two choices - I could kill them all, or wait to see which ones would succumb and cull them when they began to suffer. I made the choice to give them a chance. If they survived I could incubate eggs and vaccinate one day old chicks. That wouldn't keep the chickens from catching the virus but it would prevent the tumors from growing inside the bird thus save them from dying. I sent the test results to the breeder. She could no longer deny the obvious. She sent me a full refund. Today, exactly one month later, the blue rooster went down, and with him all hopes of breeding these little birds.

I gave him three days to recover. He went from unsteady, to wobbly, to completely unable to walk. When the tremors started, I walked back to the house and got a rifle. The Livestock Guardian Dog pushed her way into the chicken pen with me. She went to the sick bird. Something was wrong with this one. It bothered her. The dog couldn't save the rooster any more than I could. All I could do was stop the tremors. And get mad.

There was no reason for this to happen. Vaccinate your freaking birds. Seriously. If you buy from a hatchery pay the extra little bit to have them vaccinated. If you buy from a breeder, make sure they're vaccinated. And don't buy this organic bird bullshit. You can't eat the eggs of a dead bird. If you hatch your own chicks, unless you live in the middle of freaking nowhere and do not ever plan to sell birds or bring in new birds, then vaccinate your birds for Marek's. It is the #1 killer of chickens.  The symptoms will vary depending upon where the lesions or tumors appear inside the chicken so often people don't even know what killed their birds. Before this happened to me I knew nothing about Marek's Disease Virus. I only knew there was a disease the hatchery could vaccinate your chicks for before shipping. I just assumed everyone vaccinated their chickens. Now I realize that buying an un-vaccinated chicken is like buying a puppy without distempter and parvo shots. Like parvo, Marek's is EVERYWHERE.

Vaccination isn't about saving the money. It's about preventing the suffering. It cost me $114 for a necropsy on a $24 chicken, but I had to be sure. I needed to know. I needed to know there was nothing more I could do. I needed to know that I did everything. And now I know. When I see the symptoms, I know how far I will let it go before I reach for that rifle.

A couple of folks have asked for an update on Jury, Judge's brother, the dog who made the grievous mistake of murdering one of the feral barn cats. Although it crossed my mind and stayed there for a day or so, rather than re-homing him to a farm without cats, I opted to focus on intensive aversion therapy instead. Re-homing a dog is never my first choice. Not only can it be a death sentence for the dog, but I would also lose an already trained dog. The flip side of that is that I can't have an LGD killing my cats because if you keep a cat-killing dog, you can never have cats. Cats are not pets on my farm. They are a necessity. Rodents attract copperheads and rattlesnakes. Cats kill rodents. Since the introduction of cats, we've gone from 14 copperheads at the back door to three. The cats stay.

After giving the matter much thought it occurred to me that I had dropped the ball in my training. After all, if a dog can be trained not to kill chickens, it ought to be able to be trained not to kill cats. With that in mind, I enrolled every dog on my property in a curriculum which elevated cats to god-like status. The cats were thrilled with this new educational opportunity.

Within a week Jury wanted absolutely nothing to do with cats. Within a month he had resumed his normal Livestock Guardian Dog duties. Each morning I held my breath as I counted cats. Over time I quit holding my breath. Does this mean I can rest and that he will never kill a cat? Absolutely not.  He is a dog. Not only is he a dog, but he's a large primitive dog who thinks nothing of killing raccoons, skunks, and young feral hogs. He is, in essence, a killing machine. I have merely brought it to his attention that THESE cats (just these) are not prey. He could have another lapse in judgement. His brother could have a lapse in judgement. God forbid, Briar could have a lapse in judgement. Cats are very similar to the small predators the dogs already kill so the logic leap isn't that far. Because I am woefully familiar with the fact that dogs DO NOT GENERALIZE training, I must be vigilant when I catch anyone bouncing after a cat in fun. It simply cannot be tolerated. Black and white. There is no gray where this is concerned. A dog does not reason that since killing this cat is against the rules, then killing all cats must be against the rules.

So to answer your questions, Jury is doing well. He's back on duty. I wish he and his brother were able to be on duty together but alas, they cannot. I haven't been able to train around this problem yet. Independently they are mindful of their duties (Judge more so than Jury. When they were younger this was the opposite.) When together they are frat boys on spring break and choose to leave the property and go walkabout for a few hours or up to 24 hours.

When paired with Briar they stay near the barnyard or near the sheep. This leads to another issue - Briar. Briar is really beginning to show her years. She's dysplastic and this cold weather is rough on her.

I had hoped that by now I could retire Briar and trust both boys to guard together. That's not going to happen anytime soon, so I've begun casting feelers out for a Briar-like protege, a Pyrenees/Komondor cross female pup. (Yes, I'm well aware that other purebreds and mixes are just as reliable, but that's what I want, so I'm willing to hunt for it.) When Briar is having good days, I feel no pressure to find a replacement, but when Briar has a hard time getting up, or just lies around watching chickens, I feel the clock ticking. The Anatolians cannot train a Briar replacement. They are a different kind of dog. More confrontation to predators. More roaming. They pair well with Briar, but neither can be a replacement for Briar. I still need at least two Livestock Guardian Dogs, and considering the poisonous snakes, feral hogs, and cougar, it's nice to have at least three guard dogs. These dogs are on the front line.

Last week we were coming home a different route and stumbled upon a pasture with sheep and Livestock Guardian Dogs not far from our place as the crow flies. Other Half commented that they belonged to the local dog vet and he leased the pasture. There was no one around. No one. Just the sheep. And the dogs. In the middle of freaking nowhere. In a pasture surrounded by forest. Since the predators around that pasture are the exact same predators my dogs and sheep deal with nightly, I watched forty lambs and ewes bounce around and saluted the Livestock Guardian Dogs. One of the dogs was a big white Briar-like dog. He trotted over to inspect us. I saluted him. Good job, Dog. Good job.

I called the vet's office the next day to find out where he got that dog. Damn. Craig's list. Oh well, I will keep my eyes open for the perfect Pyr/Kom pup for Briar to train before she retires to a life of watching chickens in the barnyard. I think I'll name her Bramble. Don't get excited. It may take me a few years to find her. In the mean time, Briar will still be watching the chickens.