Meet our Ovtcharkas

 

a Central Asian Ovtcharka puppy to guard our flock of ewes

Our farm is situated in Middelburg, in the Eastern Cape district of Southern Africa. It is high up in the very cold “Snowy Mountains”. We are sheep farmers and our farm borders 50 000 hectares of unfenced nature reserves. Predators like Red backed jackal and Lynx crosses these borders and steal our ewes and lambs. We have decided to invest in a Central Asian Ovtcharka puppy to guard our flock of ewes.

Central asian ovtcharka with her sheep in the veld

As such Daisy was the first member of our CAO family. She was socialized with the flock of ewes and lambs, and eventually, went out and now live with them in the veld to protect them against the predators. We will update regularly on Daisy’s progress with being a Livestock Guardian dog!
We have since added two more to our CAO family, Arslan and Ogon.

Daisy was socialized with the flock of ewes and lambs, and eventually, went out and now live with them in the veld to protect them against the predators.

ovtcharkas prefer to stay with the flock and not to come closer

Alabai, Central Asian Ovtcharka pupsCentral Asian Ovtcharka puppy

Daisy as a pup

Central Asian Ovtcharka puppythe ewes will follow the flock and the ewes will follow the flock the central asian ovtcharkathe cao lives with the flock of sheep

DAISY AT 9 MONTHS
WITH HER FLOCK OF SHEEP.

Daisy is now at the age of 9 months out in the veld with her sheep, she is currently guarding the flock of ewes with 3 month old lambs and she has been with them out in the veld for the past two month now, where ever the flock move Daisy will follow, she is still very young, but she is already showing to be a excellent livestock guardian.

She have bonded with her flock very well and even when the sheep are in camps very close to our home she prefer to stay with the flock and not to come closer to us, she is a very talkative dog and bark a lot during nighttime. She is very well socialized and a friendly happy dog, always glad to see us, and will come up to us for a stroke and a pat and after a while she will turn around and wonder back to her flock, she is also very controllable quite happy to walk with us on a lead and easy to inoculate, deworm and de-tick when necessary.
Daisy have been one of the best choices we have ever made, In the first month after lambing while Daisy was still living in her training paddock we lost as much as 7 lambs in two weeks, since she is living with the flock we lost 3 in the first month and one in the second month.
Daisy has done us proud and we have decided to invest in two more Central Asian Ovtcharka pups to help Daisy guarding our flocks, they are Arslan and Ogon.

ovtcharkas are used to herd sheepA young central asian ovtcharka dog

Arslan and Ogan are 3 months old and they are each living in a training paddock that have been build for them in the camps where the flocks are that they will have to guard.

They each have three young companion ewes living with them in the paddock, these ewes will eventually lamb in the paddock, the lambing of the ewes in the paddock is part of the training as the young playful pup must learn that they are not allowed to play with the lambs, the very protective ewes will discipline the pup when they want to play with the lambs, also during this stage the pup and the ewes in the paddock form a very close bond. When the pup is about 6 month old the pup and the ewes with their lambs are let out of the paddock to join the flock, the ewes will follow the flock and the pup will stay close to his sheep companions.