We visited Amherst Island a few years later. Amherst Isl. sights 5 – where they were building a wind farm.
Topsy Farms began in 1972 as a commune. They are located on Amherst Island. They have all sorts of activities. You can shop there or online for blankets, bedding, yarn, sheepskins, or handmade items.
Topsy Farms are celebrating their world, and work on being natural and organic. We stopped going, having visited in 2018 and prior to see the snowy owls. What I found was that there were near to 100 birders attacking the island, and they weren't respecting the owls or other birders.
I showed this Tweet earlier this month, and there were questions.
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| I like Topsy Farms! |
This is what they wrote in further posts:
The coyotes learn that a zap on the nose from the electric fence means stay away. Since they protect their territory, they defend it against the new coyotes each year. But if we kill the coyotes they can’t learn and we are always teaching the lessons to different coyotes.Instead of killing coyotes that had established their territory next to their farm, they are educating them by enforcing the sheep’s territory bounded with a three-strand electric fence marked by urine and human hair (from a salon), and protected by guardian dogs.
They are famous for their wool blankets.
We have a sheepskin blanket I bought JB one year. It is a chocolate brown. The cats like it, too.
Topsy Farm Sheep from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.
10 comments:
...sheep and coyotes don't mix well.
I think I remember you talking about the birders back then.
Hari Om
Being from a long line of shepherds, I approve! YAM xx
Fascinating! I don't know of any place anything like that here. We do have owls we sometimes hear at night, but seeing them is a rarity.
Better the coyote you know.....
Never thought that coyotes would protect sheep instead of attacking them. Interesting methods. Linda in Kansas
A novel concept, guardian coyotes. So I guess the theory is that you let the coyotes adjacent to the sheep live but inhibit them with the electric fence so you don't have to keep killing them.
That sounds like a creative technique for dealing with coyotes.
That is most interesting about teaching the resident coyotes. I need to read more about this. We have to learn to live side by side with the wilds & re-think of killing everything we don't understand. Well done Topsy Farms.
That is so interesting. I love knowing about this!
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