S3 07 Protecting Our Sheep After a Wild Dog Attack

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:01]You're not going to believe this. And we're going to dig a hole down here and uh just bury it here.

[00:00:07]>> No one solution will will solve the problem, I don't think.

[00:00:13]>> What have we got happening here?

[00:00:16]>> Two single gates there and a bigger gate here.

[00:00:21]Oh boy. Not looking forward to this.

[00:00:25]Well, and that's a wrap.

[00:00:32]Welcome to 7 Hills Estate. Set across 420 acres of open pasture, forest edges, and rolling hills in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland.

[00:00:44]Over the past few years, James and Michelle have been building an ecoarmm stay from the ground up, restoring the land and creating a place for guests to come, switch off, and stay a while.

[00:00:59]Now, as the farm stay opens its gates, a new chapter begins.

[00:01:09]This is life on the land. The work, the rewards, and everything in between.

[00:01:17]And why life's better on the farm.

[00:01:27]You're not going to believe this. Some sad news. We just drove out the back and uh we drove straight to the Connell Lodge just to have a look at the orchard. And there's a sheep. Surprised us. So, one of our prized sheep is hiding up underneath the cover of the Connell Lodge while it's raining. So, we couldn't gather. I couldn't grab it. So, we drove back to the shed to get a rope.

[00:01:46]Looked across the sheepyard and there's only two sheep there. So, we went over there and had a look. And uh there's one carcass on the ground. I quickly found one, two, three other carcasses. I saw the ram scared is hiding in the long grass. So out of a nine, we got one, two, three with a fourth one up the Con Lodge alive. There's five total still not alive. So I guess there's uh two unaccounted for. So very disappointing.

[00:02:13]And on top it all off, we found a stag right up against the water's edge and it's been mowled. So, it's like a three-pointer either side and uh yeah, so the wild dogs that chase it to the water and uh then then they took it and I guess they swam across and had to go at our sheep. So, not a good afternoon.

[00:02:31]This is some of the things you got to deal with on the farm, I guess. But I'll have to wait till tomorrow. It's too so too wet to get a machine out to pick up those carcasses and and some of them are just too messy to to pick up by hand.

[00:02:43]So, I'll have to deal with it tomorrow.

[00:02:48]So sadly we found the the one last I had my calculations wrong with one more cheek we found out end being totally devoured just I won't go into details but there wasn't much left so um kind of explains why they didn't eat the others but they still ignore them and they had no reason to kill them but we also think we found another another deer So, we'll see what happens. Anyway, we brought the excavator down and we're going to dig a hole down here and uh just bury them here rather than put them up in the bone guard.

[00:03:31]Sir Ross has got the job of manh handling these just like it.

[00:03:38]It's sad. It's just depressing that it's I got no words for it. It's just frustrating.

[00:03:45]I mean, just last Friday, Thursday it was, we trimmed all their hoofs. We um wormed them now. Looking really good. We thought there's a couple there that are pranking and uh then this happens. It's just a waste. The the wild dog just wasted all this food, you know. It's we, you know, we can't do anything with it. Just got to just got to bury it. They'll come back looking for more. Now they found the sheep yard.

[00:04:18]They'll come back looking for more. I don't you know it's really annoying that we just don't I don't even know whether we can have a sheet yard the way it is now. I can say that the more human engagement, interaction, activity we have here, the the more likely they're going to keep away. So the sooner you get some bookings here, the the better.

[00:04:42]Here's our two little little funlet that that remain. There's still one up in the Commonale Lodge. We had no idea how to get it down. It was the most quiet of the whole lot, but it won't come to us.

[00:04:55]It's scared. And then there's the the ram that's over there on that long grass. You just see it moving. It's been there two days. It It doesn't want to doesn't want to move, too. It's still very scared. So, we found a a carcass here, another one beside it. There's one over the long grass over there, and there was one that was eaten eaten uh almost entirely. Was just just over here. We didn't spot it yesterday when we were walking around.

[00:05:37]>> The one I found, Ross.

[00:05:40]>> Yeah, I walked in from that side. It's pretty clear, >> right? Okay.

[00:05:51]So, here it is. Here. Here's the drag mark down through here.

[00:06:00]Okay. Nice and slow.

[00:06:10]Lucky that I guess.

[00:06:32]This one's had at least they've eaten it.

[00:06:34]>> Yeah. But after eating that, they didn't want to eat anything else.

[00:06:36]>> No, they saved up for the next meals.

[00:06:51]Well, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is the rain has finally stopped. The bad news is that the dogs came back last night and took that ram that was hiding out on the reads and the grass. So, now we're down to three sheep. We've taken those three up to the safety of our new dog enclosure that we have the in the house or by the house at least. and we hope that they'll be good there for about four weeks while we tackle this problem.

[00:07:14]We're going to use a three threeprong attack uh to deal with this issue.

[00:07:19]Firstly, we're going to build a secure dog enclosed or dog safe uh boundary around that rustic old sheep shed that we built last year. um just someplace where we can keep the sheep locked up every single night and also if we happen to go away from the farm, you know, over a day or two when Ross and Nicole aren't here as well. We just got to keep them safe. The second approach will be to hound council a little bit. They should be doing a better job at keeping these numbers down. I think they can do a lot better, a lot more. And we can also uh participate in that. I'm going to set some and I'll at least get hold of a trap and uh see if we have any luck using our own bait uh to attract them into the cage. And uh so that's what this episode's all about. And there will be a third uh solution, I guess. But you'll have to stay tuned for that.

[00:08:09]That's going to be a surprise. So wait till the end of the episode and we'll give you a hint of what that is.

[00:08:16]>> Yeah.

[00:08:16]>> Yeah. Surprise.

[00:08:17]>> Lot of concrete again, eh?

[00:08:19]>> Yeah.

[00:08:20]>> Not looking forward to doing it, but anyway.

[00:08:23]So, um, that's that's a plenty that's plenty big enough.

[00:08:26]>> Yeah. So, we re reconfigured the yard reconfigured the yards again.

[00:08:30]>> Yeah.

[00:08:31]>> That'll be that'll be that one will go back out there.

[00:08:37]>> This one will come across here and then back there.

[00:08:41]Um, which >> where's the fence coming from? Oh, it only comes this corner.

[00:08:45]>> Yeah. So, this is our our 1200 high fence. So, it'll be up here somewhere.

[00:08:50]>> Yeah.

[00:08:50]>> Come along here. I might just put some gravel there and a pipe underneath just to get our drain out.

[00:08:56]>> Is there going to be a gate here?

[00:08:57]>> So, probably want to put a um a 2 m or 2.4 m gate here. Just a um you know, width of a car or the mower to get the mower in so we can mow in there if we need to tidy it up.

[00:09:07]>> Yeah. And and that's that's better, too, because I need to I need to come straight when I come down that with a tractor.

[00:09:12]>> That's right.

[00:09:13]>> If I'm coming if I'm heading that angle, it's a bit hairy fairy. So, >> yeah, >> it'll straighten me up a little bit more.

[00:09:18]>> And it will get our gate on the road square up as well. Yeah.

[00:09:22]>> Um, yeah. So, a gate there. So, you can open that one. They can come from that paddic. So, that's paddic one. Come from there, come in and get their water.

[00:09:30]>> Yeah.

[00:09:30]>> Close that one. This is paddic two. So, this will be a gate here which can open either way. Whatever. Then this fence here will go across to We got to find a line >> roughly through there.

[00:09:41]>> Misses trees. And >> we got We're going to miss the um the water line actually.

[00:09:44]>> Yeah. We don't want it go straight through there somewhere.

[00:09:47]>> Stump right here. I remember that stump when we trenched it.

[00:09:50]Uh, so that's paddic two. So, same thing. You leave that gate open all day.

[00:09:54]They can come in.

[00:09:55]>> This can be a pedestrian gate though, right? Doesn't have to be the bigger one.

[00:09:58]>> 1200 gate. Yeah. 1200 >> fence there. And then paddic three here.

[00:10:03]Another gate here.

[00:10:04]>> From here up to there is is paddic two.

[00:10:07]>> Paddic two. Is that one?

[00:10:08]>> Gotcha. And here here's paddic three.

[00:10:10]But paddic three also comes around to the entrance.

[00:10:14]>> No, no, that's paddic one.

[00:10:16]>> Oh, I saw paddic one around there.

[00:10:17]>> Paddic. So, this will be our um one of our gates we got over there.

[00:10:23]>> And this, you know, to try and find a good spot to go down in here. They're all over there. Was shocking cuz it dropped off here.

[00:10:29]>> It's all wet. And that's what we're going to do. I'll do a rock rock pool over there.

[00:10:32]>> So, gate there and then just our um >> mesh down here somehow, which is going to be a bit tricky. It >> is going to be tricky. It's got to be mesh.

[00:10:41]>> Yeah.

[00:10:42]>> I like how this is parallel there to the dam. Looks neat.

[00:10:44]>> Yeah. And that's enough grass there.

[00:10:47]Wide enough here to get the M up around here. And what we've done with the yards is um using all the panels, but we'll still put our one off here as our feed in for your um truck.

[00:11:00]>> Yeah.

[00:11:01]>> This gate will let them into here. And we've got this as a gate here which can let them out into there.

[00:11:09]>> Oh yeah. And then that that if you've got, you know, we've only got three at the moment, but if you got say a dozen or so in here, you don't want to work on this one and then put it back in and get mixed in again.

[00:11:20]>> And then that's outside of the the yards.

[00:11:26]>> Yeah. Get back.

[00:11:28]>> No, sounds good. Hey, what do you reckon, sheep?

[00:11:38]Well, we got it all marked out. We just got to dig a few holes. And today, or this morning's job simply to get the the corner post in. Hopefully tomorrow we can pull string lines against those and and get the other posts in.

[00:12:03]Heat.

[00:12:20]Heat.

[00:12:43]What's that thing?

[00:12:51]Oh, a little. Yep.

[00:12:55]Heat. Heat.

[00:13:43]Just pulling a little good.

[00:14:25]Hold I have to.

[00:14:27]>> Oh, I'm going to have to go drive.

[00:14:45]I'm trying to get trust me. I'm trying to get no water.

[00:15:17]where you want it just again. So that's not down.

[00:15:26]That's good.

[00:15:27]>> Work out a latch later or a chain or something.

[00:15:30]>> Oh, okay. Cuz we didn't buy the butterfly butterfly.

[00:15:33]>> Well, the butterfly is for a flat post.

[00:15:35]So >> Oh, true.

[00:15:36]>> Yeah. So, it doesn't really work. And that other one we got up top, well, that's only swings one way if we want to swing them both ways.

[00:15:42]>> I hope you guys appreciate all this work we're doing to secure our food supply.

[00:15:58]So, that's all the the corner posts in now, but we've only got enough um concrete blend to about six or seven holes. So, we'll start on this line here. Try and get that done.

[00:16:32]>> All this work. We only got one post in.

[00:16:35]Oh.

[00:16:37]That's how fun they are.

[00:16:41]Looking good, Ross.

[00:16:45]>> What have we got happening here?

[00:16:49]>> We're shoring up our our food chain.

[00:16:54]>> Yeah. Good work.

[00:16:55]>> Make sure we always have protein of the kind that you like.

[00:16:59]>> I do. My favorite.

[00:17:02]Well, there's going to be two single gates there because it's going to be a fence go across from here.

[00:17:08]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:17:09]>> Across there. So, that becomes one paddic. So, you got one gate. There's another paddic from that. See, start pick it up here.

[00:17:16]>> Through to here. That's another paddic.

[00:17:19]>> That gate's here. And there's a bigger gate here that we can drive a vehicle through should we need to get one through here. And that's we'll call that paddic one, enclosure one. So when so basically whatever path they're in just leave the gate open.

[00:17:33]>> Yeah.

[00:17:33]>> And they uh can access their nighttime safe enclosure plus their water.

[00:17:38]>> I need a little timer on the gate that closes the moment.

[00:17:41]>> No, you love doing that. You love doing that.

[00:17:45]>> That's a hen house.

[00:17:48]>> Yeah. Or the dog enclosure. And they've been very inquisitive.

[00:17:52]>> Yeah.

[00:17:52]>> This one here come up and licking my hand before.

[00:17:55]>> Nice.

[00:17:58]That's good.

[00:18:00]Wow, this is good. Very good.

[00:18:03]>> Amazing what you get for $25,000, isn't it?

[00:18:12]>> Yeah.

[00:18:13]>> And most of that's labor.

[00:18:16]You should see my invoice.

[00:18:21]So, Michelle bought this dog trap for us online. So, we don't know really how good it's going to be, but um it's just one of the one of the approaches we have to take cuz no one solution will will solve the problem, I don't think.

[00:18:38]See how how good this is.

[00:18:50]I just let the people go down first.

[00:19:00]Got to be a macano set. Let's see if it's relatively >> easy. It comes with instructions, though.

[00:19:06]>> I could be wrong. Everything's clamped down.

[00:19:10]Or maybe read the instructions.

[00:19:20]>> Cut the cables.

[00:19:22]Wider.

[00:19:25]Put the metal plate in the middle of the cage. The plate will which will trigger the cage door. Clip the back door into the metal clips.

[00:19:38]Back door into the metal clips.

[00:19:40]>> These things.

[00:19:41]>> Oh yeah, that's the back door. You're right.

[00:19:45]I think we'll get back to you.

[00:19:49]It's one thing to have these things made in China, but you'd think they'd get uh a native English speaker to write the instructions. Listen to this. Using the metal ring clips provided to clamp the door to the roof of the cage trap when fastened, the door will automatically set in the trap position to open the door cage to ensure the door upwards.

[00:20:08]There is a middle anti- pushing bar which stops the door from being pushed open when animals are trapped. Be ensure. Be ensure. You push the middle bar down so that you can raise the front door. It's all one sentence.

[00:20:22]>> Where do you begin?

[00:20:23]>> Please translate.

[00:20:25]I got this bit.

[00:20:26]>> It's in English when I go to translate it.

[00:20:29]>> Jeez.

[00:20:30]>> Oh, and that goes around this. Um, >> what's this bit right?

[00:20:34]>> Yes. Half of that. Yep. Hook that on there for me, please.

[00:20:40]That Almost. It's the other way. That's it.

[00:20:44]Good.

[00:20:45]>> That goes >> here. What is this? This goes here.

[00:20:54]Look.

[00:20:55]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:20:58]>> Oh, and something else hooks up to here.

[00:21:03]I think maybe. Oh, this thing must hook up there. So, how do we get this down?

[00:21:11]Oh, that the animal triggers it. Oh, that goes >> up there. That goes there.

[00:21:16]>> Oh, there. Look, that goes like that.

[00:21:18]>> Yeah, >> there you go.

[00:21:20]>> There you go.

[00:21:21]>> So, >> so >> when they push this, let's see if I can do it. Ready?

[00:21:25]>> Yep.

[00:21:27]Oh, do it again.

[00:21:29]>> Now, what stops them lifting that up?

[00:21:32]Oh, this bar here.

[00:21:33]>> Yeah.

[00:21:34]>> Oh, okay.

[00:21:35]>> Oh, look at us. We We We I think I worked it out, but okay.

[00:21:40]I'll give it to you. I don't mind. You lifted that up. That's it. Lift that up.

[00:21:45]>> Yep.

[00:21:45]>> And then that goes under like that.

[00:21:47]>> Yep.

[00:21:48]>> And you sit the bait.

[00:21:50]>> I think on the other side put the boat over here. I agree.

[00:21:53]>> And then fix >> cheapest.

[00:21:57]>> Yeah.

[00:21:58]>> That doesn't explain what the heck this thing is.

[00:22:00]>> No, that's a flag to say come here.

[00:22:03]>> And And that thing there, what's it even? What's that thing?

[00:22:05]>> It's a balancing bracket. No, it is.

[00:22:11]>> Oh, yeah. Look at that. This one's going in there.

[00:22:13]>> Okay. And this is supposed to be Oh, this is supposed to be under. Yes. And this goes underneath it. Just >> ah like that.

[00:22:23]>> Good thing we didn't need instructions.

[00:22:25]>> Oh, like that. Something like that. The same thing.

[00:22:29]>> So, we think we got it worked out. Well, I think Michelle's got it worked out for us. Um, sadly, one of our chickens passed away yesterday. So, we're going to go grab that. We set it aside. We're going to grab that and use that as a as bait down the end. We'll save you the visual for that one, but we'll put the chicken down the end or the the meat down the end. We're not putting poison in it like that because if our dogs encounter it, um yeah, we don't want any dogs or stuff, even the wild ones. But anyway, uh we'll use those bait. I'm going to put it up in the hills where we we regularly see the the wild dogs come down.

[00:23:03]Any of these people have animals like um that were here on the weekend?

[00:23:31]>> Yeah. Yeah. One guy's got alpacas.

[00:23:34]>> Oh, right.

[00:23:34]>> Yeah, Rob's got good alpacas. I like to talk to him more about that.

[00:23:37]>> Pick his brain about that.

[00:23:38]>> Yeah. He said the easiest animals he's ever had look after.

[00:23:41]>> Oh, you're kidding.

[00:23:42]>> No. He said they don't require any attention.

[00:23:44]>> You're kidding.

[00:23:45]>> No. I said, "Do they spit?"

[00:23:48]He said, "Yeah, they they'll spit if you I can't remember he did or his wife did, but they spit if you try and feed them separate." Like you don't feed them at the same time.

[00:23:55]>> Oh, right. Okay.

[00:23:56]>> Got to feed them at the same time or they'll let you know. Hey, where's mine?

[00:23:59]>> I'm missing out. Yes. Yeah.

[00:24:01]Yeah. Right. And have they got them just as a pet or have they got them for like gardening or >> I didn't get into that. Don't know.

[00:24:09]Probably as a lawnmowers.

[00:24:11]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:14]>> Yeah. 70 mil and there's got to go out towards you.

[00:24:24]>> More. More towards you. Bit more. Bit more. That's it.

[00:24:42]You would have heard us talking before about the gates here. So, we have one wider gate to get a machine of some kind, even a vehicle into the yard. And then there's two pedestrian gates here.

[00:24:53]Now, underneath both of those, or all those gates, there's three gates. It needs to be level. So there's quite a lot of height here. So there's gonna be a lot of concrete through here and then it falls down to that corner down there.

[00:25:05]So we'll get this box and we'll probably start some concrete today. We're not going to get all that way. Um I've got to cut up the the steel. We've only got so much mesh and then I have to run this afternoon. Once I've emptied empty that truck over there of all that all that concrete blend, I'll be to run down the road and get some uh 6 m lengths. Ross and I originally had a plan of making it 280 wide from inside of the of the boxing, but we've since agreed we'll do 70 either side of this.

[00:25:34]So, it's an outside dimension of uh 60 mm. So, 60 plus 270 140. So, it's now 200 wide. A lot less concrete. And as you can see, it's going to it's going to be quite thick. So, we'll probably put another board up against the star pickers underneath this this main main board.

[00:25:55]These LVLs, I bought them for the uh the orchard when we did all that concrete underneath the the food garden fencing.

[00:26:02]It was several hundreds of meters and they've last a long time. They don't bend. They're laminated board, so they're a really good investment. Look at that down the end. Looks like it's got a bit of a kink in it now, but man, I've had them for 5 years, so they're doing all right.

[00:26:29]Oh boy. Not looking forward to this.

[00:26:32]This This is a big mix.

[00:26:38]To all you kids out there, six parts concrete plan to one part. What you call a ratio? 6:1.

[00:27:01]That's one.

[00:27:04]That's two.

[00:27:08]Three.

[00:27:11]Four.

[00:27:14]Five.

[00:27:18]6.

[00:27:23]8.

[00:27:26]9.

[00:27:29]10.

[00:27:32]Legs. 11.

[00:27:35]12.

[00:27:38]13 14 15 and that's a wrap.

[00:27:53]So that was 15 loads of blend and that essentially did four bays which is 15th of the total. So there four more days of four bays to box up and pour. So I guess that means there 60 more mixes to go.

[00:28:31]More like a teddy bear than a guard dog.

[00:28:33]Hey.

[00:28:36]>> Oh my gosh. This This one is so light.

[00:28:41]>> It'll be like fighting fire with fire.