©Louise Liebenberg 2017
Feeding a pack of livestock guardian dogs can be expensive,
however, there are several ways to help reduce the overall feeding costs. In
this article, I will discuss some of the things we do to help maintain quality
food to the dogs at a cost-effective rate. I understand that laws and
situations are different, and this may not be a viable option for everyone.
Feeding dogs is always regarded as a “hot topic” among dog breeders and dog
owners. Some swear by certain brands, others by raw feeding, yet others by
“traditional” foods that dogs would eat in their land of origin. I have the
simple belief to feed what we have, what is available, the best we can
economically afford, and as naturally possible. Fads, great marketing, or
clever packaging of big brand dog food does not influence me. In fact, I am averse
to these gimmicks in the dog food industry. I like to keep it simple and
affordable.
We are feeding 8 Sarplaninac LGDs and a few border collies
at any one time, that is well over 1200 lbs of dog every day. Our dogs go
through a 40-lb bag of dog food every couple of days. A reasonable quality dog
kibble is quite expensive, and keeping the dogs well fed is quite a big
cost. Our dogs are fed primarily a raw
diet including meat, bones, offal, and eggs, if raw is not available or
inconvenient to feed, then the dogs get kibble. We are not “dog foodies”, our
dogs eat what we have. We have never had any issues with the dogs switching
between dog food brands, or between going from raw to kibble.
We have a few avenues for acquiring meat for the dogs, we have a good
relationship with a local butcher who will provide us with meat scraps, bones,
and other waste from butchering (things like liver, kidneys etc.). A lot of
this waste is fat, which we either freeze and save for the colder winter
months, or feed alongside some kibble. Excess fat, is disposed of through
composting.
Our main source of meat for the dogs is through the feeding of cull animals
from our own ranch. We have made the
business decision not to sell all our cull ewes and rams, instead we will
process some of them ourselves into our own dog food. In this way, we can
butcher a cull animal when we need it, and do not need to be concerned with
storage or freezing.
We live about four hours away from the closest auction market, shipping cull
ewes has been an expense to us due to the distance to our markets, time to
drive them there, commission fees and the low value that these animals make on
the market. It makes more sense to process them into our own dog food than ship
them. Not only does it make economical sense for us to utilise these animals
ourselves, it is also perhaps a better welfare decision for the culls, who do not
have to endure long travel times and the stress of auction markets before
butchering.
We will also process our own cull cows who cannot be shipped due to
transportation and welfare reasons. We are often called by neighbouring cattle
ranchers who have such a cow to come and process the animal., these cows are
often given to us for free. A cow can feed a pack of LGD for quite some time.
We are lucky to live in an area (Northern Alberta, Canada) where we have very
cold winters that last for 6-7 months of the year. This helps to ensures that
all the meat we process, remains in a frozen state, allowing us to preserve it
for the dogs without having to have a whole lot of freezers.
Our method for butchering is simple, after freezing the carcass, (this happens
naturally outside in the winter), the entire animal is cut into large chucks,
we do not skin or gut the animal, and simply make big chunks which we feed in
frozen form to the dogs.
Some ranchers are concerned that once LGDs “taste blood” or
eat the animals they are supposed to be protecting, they will go rogue and will
not be reliable as LGDs any more. We
have never experienced this type of behaviour in any of our dogs. The dogs can
clearly distinguish between the live animals they protect and chucks of frozen
meat as food. In Macedonia, we saw shepherds feeding fresh dead lambs, cut into
pieces to their dogs and none of these dogs attacked the sheep they were
protecting. Many of the shepherd’s dogs lived on a basic diet of bread and
water, sometimes supplemented with whey from cheesemaking or some milk. Any
protein the dogs received was primarily from dead livestock or afterbirths. The
dead stock was utilised to feed the dogs.
We do not allow our dogs to simply “help themselves” to any
dead livestock, we do remove the carcasses and if the animal is freshly dead, we
may process this meat too. We have found that our dogs will protect a dead
sheep in the field from predators, ravens, and other scavengers, and then when
cut up and offered as a meal a few weeks later, will willingly eat it then.
There are a few things we do to ensure that a young dog understands the
boundaries of what can be eaten and what not; we will not allow a young dog to
eat still born lambs, we do remove deadstock as soon as we can, we reprimand a
young dog if it starts to chew on a carcass in the field ( we like to
investigate a carcass to understand what the animal died from), we like to
portion and feed the animals frozen chunks rather than whole carcasses.
There are times when we do feed kibble, primarily in the
summer when it is difficult to preserve the meat. Our dogs are flexible, and they eat what they
are offered, and they do not experience any stomach upsets going from kibble to
raw meat. Feeding kibble to the dogs in among hundreds of sheep can be
challenging, simply because some of the ewes really seem to like dog food.
Feeding kibble often requires us to feed the dogs separately to avoid the sheep
trying to bully the dogs for the kibble, we do not have this issue when feeding
raw.
We raise laying hens and will also supplement the kibble with an egg or two.
Our dogs are healthy, fit, and energetic, have no allergies,
have great coats and strong clean teeth, and are never ill. I feed to need. If the dogs are working hard,
or the weather is wicked, then the dogs get more. I like to keep the dogs well
fed, and in good working condition.
Seeing the dogs enjoying a healthy meal of mutton or beef, knowing we have made the best economic decision for feeding our dogs, made a humane choice for the cull animal, and are feeding a high quality meal to the dogs, makes feeding this way a good choice for our ranch.
