Our company is called the "Grazerie".
Our website can be found at: http://www.grazerie.com/
Our website can be found at: http://www.grazerie.com/
Our Ranch
We bought a ranch in northern Alberta, close to the town of High Prairie. We have 480 acres of our own land and then rent pasture and hay land (about another 600-800 acres).Our ranch is at the end of a gravel road and is a dead end road. We are surrounded by bush and forest, and are close to the Winagami Provincial Park. Our land is only half open and the rest is bush. We have, at the moment about 600 ewes, however want to grow to about 1000 ewes. We have about 50 red and black Angus cattle. We run between 8 and 10 Sarplaninac livestock guardian dogs and have border collies to do the stock work for us. We also have some chickens for eggs, a few cats and some horses to gather cattle with, go trail riding and the kids do 4-h with them.
During the summer months we let the ewes graze in the bush. We use temporary electric nets in the bush and give the sheep lots of 40-80 acres to graze. The bush is dense and we cannot just walk through it. We take the ewes out of their night corral in the morning to the bush and at night we gather them and the Sarplaninac dogs and take them back home. We feel this is the safest option as we do have large predators on our ranch. Last year we had wolf on our ranch. The dogs go with the ewes between the pastures. Our dogs respect the electric fences and stay in the designated area.
We do not own a gun, do not trap or bait any predators. We believe that using a combination of management tools, we can prevent predation on our livestock.
To read more about how we do this, visit our site or click HERE. Our local MD decided to place a bounty on wolves, and I believe this is a very bad decision for a number of reasons:
*Wolves are a keystone species and we play a vital role in the Canadian ecosystem.
*Bounties have proven time and again not to work.
*They are costly to tax payers and the system to claim bounties are easily abused and open to fraudulent claims.
*Bounties on wolves lull ranchers into complacency.
*Better livestock management is the solution and not killing.
*Wolves are a keystone species and we play a vital role in the Canadian ecosystem.
*Bounties have proven time and again not to work.
*They are costly to tax payers and the system to claim bounties are easily abused and open to fraudulent claims.
*Bounties on wolves lull ranchers into complacency.
*Better livestock management is the solution and not killing.
To read an article that I wrote about ranchers and predators click HERE.Feel free to contact me if you would like more information about how to ranch and co-exist with predators and other wildlife and how to get involved in predator friendly ranching.
