Abbigayle Charlene

I wouldn't say our predator population is heavy. We can hear Coyotes during the summer. Have had a bobcat stalking our chickens one time in a terrible rainstorm. Our problems have mostly been with our chickens, opossums and raccoons.

We did put a hot wire about 6 inches above the ground roughly 6 inches inside their pasture. It fixed the issue we were having of them escaping under the fence and kept out my German Shepherd when she tried to follow me into the pasture one day.

Hello fellow permies!

What is the best way to crowdfund a project?

A friend of mine and I are looking at opening up an animal rescue (for dogs and livestock) and that kind of project requires quite a bit of capital.

The animals would be managed permaculturally and the land regenerated using them (the property we have in mind is old farmland and sandy at the moment).

Any help is greatly appreciated!

I am in West Michigan, about 30 minutes from the lake.

I am on 30 acres, the livestock pasture is on an approximately 11 acre parcel.

As I said, the fencing is chicken wire.

I have a question for everyone.

I have 3 St. Croix sheep and 2 Kiko goats. I just moved them out to a summer pasture. It's approximately 135' by 140' chicken wire on T-posts with fiberglass support posts because chicken wire is less than ideal, it has grass, autumn olive, pine trees, etc. Ideally I would run them in a much smaller electric fence pasture, but that is a story for another time.

We usually put them in a small shelter at night, the goats shelter is not finished yet so I was walking them to the barn and locking the sheep in their shelter in the pasture.

My question is, do I need to lock them up at night? My thought is that if a predator gets through the chicken wire it will get through the snow fencing (my dad built his shelter, I am either scrapping it or repurposing it soon) on the shelter.

Now the concern is that I don't have a LGD. I have other dogs that I take down there with me when I check the livestock.

Any advice is appreciated,  I don't know if an LGD would be ideal in my situation.