Spring hath Sprung

 Liz found twin fawns this morning, right next to Sunny's yard, in the exact area where the two old cows, Bama and Moon, hang out at night, right up close to the buildings.

Why you might wonder, would a wild animal choose to bear and hide their young so close to places where people are, in an enclosure with animals many times their size...

I expect it is for safety. There are lots of coyotes around here and they will pretty much eat anything. I am sure tiny, newborn fawns are high on the menu.

However, cows and horses tend to hate anything unfamiliar and canine. The old bossies are not going to let coyotes hang around their sleeping spot. The deer benefit from their strength of opinion.

It's the same with domestic stock. We all know that folks put donkeys, guardian dogs, and llamas in with sheep to save them from carnivores. However, you might not expect that sheep would find their own protectors.

Once upon a time we had a few sheep bonded to the farm...they would not stray. Thus they lived unfettered, stealing cow feed, grazing where they wanted to, completely free to roam. 

Nights are perilous for such delicate creatures as sheep, which will die anytime the mood strikes them..... 

Ours had one part of survival nailed down though. Whenever we went out in the morning, Magnum,  the old black horse, would be standing with sheep surrounding him, tucked under his tummy, squashed up against his legs, and generally as close to him as they could get. Livestock guardian saddle horse so to speak. They had to go under the fence to get to him and were never in with the horses except at night when the yotes were around. Pretty good plan I guess, as we never lost one to predators. 


....As you can see below our current sheep have an even better strategy for avoiding brush wolves....