• last year
Maremma sheepdog Bear, three, has spent the last all his life keeping a watchful eye over the 750 birds each year.

Farmer George Ford, 35, from Somerset, UK, enlisted a sidekick for Bear - 11-month-old pup, Star - in the summer and she is being trained to look after the chickens and the turkeys.

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😹
Fun
Transcript
00:00My name's George Ford and we're here at Nemtnick Pastures in North Somerset.
00:11So we've got 750 turkeys here today and we started with turkeys in 2018 with about 120
00:22in a barn.
00:24And then we progressed from barn rear to free range to pasture raised which is where we
00:27are now.
00:33Yeah so bears are morema which is an Italian sheep dog breed so they're bred to live in
00:37the Alps of Italy to protect flocks of sheep from wolves.
00:42So we got bear three years ago when we first started trialling with this pasture raised
00:47turkey model and it's proved really successful keeping the predators out at night and the
00:53daytime because we're so vulnerable to predator risk keeping the birds as outdoors as we do.
01:06He's out with the birds 24-7 yeah and then when they go in December he has a holiday
01:11for a couple of months.
01:15Yeah so we got Star back in the spring and she's our latest addition to the wolf pack.
01:23We've also got pasture raised chickens so we need a couple of dogs with the chickens
01:27and a couple with the turkeys and so yeah training's going well.
01:31She starts off in her own, well they start off in their own little pen within the birds
01:35but not actually in with the birds so they can't get to them and play with them.
01:39They just need to be exposed to them as much as possible at a young age and then they just
01:44grow up knowing that they're part of the pack and they've got to protect them.
01:55If there's an intruder he's quite aggressive and barking and even people that he knows
02:00if we're not there he's quite aggressive towards them but to us he's soft as muck.
02:04He loves to cuddle and scratch and he's great with the kids as well.
02:14He loves to cuddle and scratch and he's great with the kids as well.
02:18He loves to cuddle and scratch and he's great with the kids as well.

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