Living away from the city comes with the joy of owning a piece of land where children and pets can run. In most cases, country homeowners even keep livestock for produce and food. And although a life away from the city comes with peace of mind, it also means that wildlife is just outside your backdoor.
Anyone who has raised livestock understands the problems you experience with predators. Mountain lions, in particular, are notoriously known for preying on livestock and even injuring or killing pets.
If you live in a vacation home or a country home patrolled by mountain lions, you need to take precautions recommended by authorities. This will help to keep your family safe as well as the pets. The best thing is to keep a barrier between you and the wildlife. However, mountain lions can jump across most fences.
For this reason, here are additional tips you can use to keep your pets and livestock safe from cougar attacks.
1. Keep Your Pets Indoors If You Can
Keeping your loving pets indoors not only protects them from parasites and diseases but also protects them from mountain lions. However, we understand this is not always possible.
Most pets, especially dogs, go crazy when they see an open field. And besides, you are living away from the city so you and your animals can have enough space to move around. It wouldn’t make sense spending the whole day cooped up indoors.
The best part is that your pets are at minimal risk of an attack during the day. Lions are most active during the night. If having your animals sleep inside is impossible, for example, those with flocks of sheep, then secure them for the night in well-built enclosures.
2. Keep Your Yard Mountain Lion Free
Mountain lions usually live in territories of around 20 square miles. Most of their days are spent roaming through their territories but prey might make them move even further. If you are looking to prevent mountain lions from encroaching on your farm, make sure you are not attracting their natural predator, the deer.
You can read The British Deer Society’s tips on how to keep deer away. This article has tips on the plants to avoid and which to grow to keep deer away. Bushes, for example, are not only a fire hazard but also the deer’s favorite food. Moreover, bushes provide good hiding places for mountain lions and other predators.
To keep your livestock safe, make sure to clear all bushes around your home. Also, make sure to store all your pet’s or livestock’s food in secure enclosures. Garbage cans are also a good buffet for wild animals. So, make sure to secure your garbage bags and dispose of them regularly.
3. Safeguard Livestock
No lie. Raising livestock is a messy business. And like most predators, mountain lions always want to go for easy prey which might include two or the sheep from your flock. The smell of blood from newborn, injured, or dead animals will have mountain lions banging at your doorstep.
The only way you can protect these animals is by making sure you treat all the injured animals as soon as injuries happen. Additionally, you can lock up the vulnerable or injured animals in a secure enclosure.
If a recovery pen is not an option, you should consider building a really tall fence. The ones with spikes or electric barbed wire. Mountain lions have been known to jump up to 15 feet vertically from single jumps. Fences designed to keep mountain lions out should be high, deep, and well constructed.
4. Never Chain or Tie Down Pets or Livestock
Most pet owners are tempted to tie down problematic pets such as guard dogs. In other instances, farmers might decide to tether down sheep or goats to keep down grass or bush. However, tethered animals are an easy snack for predators since the animals can’t run or move freely to save their lives.
If you still decide to tether down animals, please remember that this periodic loss of domestic animals is an expected cost. You should not blame or kill the wild animals for acting naturally as a result of your actions.
Tethered animals are not only a risk to the rest of the livestock but to people too. If predators score easy meals from your farm, they are likely to move closer to the food. Tethering makes your neighborhood enticing.
5. Safeguard Pets in Your Yard
If you allow your pets outside unaccompanied, keep them within a well-fenced yard with a clear view or within an enclosed run. Pets tend to explore too much and they might end up encroaching on a mountain lion’s territory.
Dog runs can help keep their exploration limited, and they are available in most home supply stores. You can even create your own with a normal chain link fence.
In addition, you can provide pets with an access door to the house or a safe place to hide when they feel threatened. And although attacks might not happen during the day, it is important to remember that predators are actively looking for their next meal. So, bring in your pets during the early evening, and make sure to lock all access doors for the night. You don’t want the mountain lion following you into your home.
6. Install Frightening Devices to Scare Away the Predators
You might have done everything perfectly, but the mountain lion still decides to visit your farm. Warning signs like animal noises at night are indicators that something is going wrong. It might be a mountain lion or aliens. Whichever the case, you don’t want to go out there and risk your life to save your livestock. But there is hope.
We don’t know much about aliens but mountain lions like other predators avoid dangers they don’t understand. Installing motion or timer activated devices around your animal enclosures may keep the predator away. Alternating devices like water, light, and sound can provide great ways to keep mountain lions and deer out of your compound.
Have You Tried Nite Guard?
Speaking of frightening devices to keep wildlife away, The Original Nite Guard is a leading predation protection company with over 40 years of experience in livestock protection. For this reason, they have many devices and tools to keep wildlife fleeing from your property.
The Nite Guard Solar, in particular, is a solar-powered light that activates at dusk, flashes all night, every night. You can rest easy knowing that mountain lions are terrified at the blinking light preventing them from preying on your livestock.
As if that was not enough, the light can double up as a “security camera” because of its appearance. No recording takes place but the intruders don’t know that.
If wildlife is a problem you can’t manage, visit our page to purchase this device for immediate results. Most clients buy a set of these devices to keep the entire compound wildlife proof at night.
For more information, contact Nite Guard with questions or for expert advice. We always love hearing from you.