FS farm guards are lion-hearted
03/06/2007 17:57 - (SA)


Maryna van Wyk


Hertzogville - In what is possibly a first, fully-grown lions are being used as security guards by farmers to patrol the perimeters of their farm houses at night.

A few Free State farmers have surrounded their homes with fences to provide a cordoned-off area patrolled by their feline crime-fighters.

Booms come down at sunset to close the farmstead off from the outside world.

Marius Erwee, 33, is one of the pioneers in the use of lion-hearted "security guards" at Lushof farm near Hertzogville.

He and his wife, Valerie, have four lions that roam around in camps next to the house and garden in the daytime.

'Can't feel any safer'

When the last vehicle is in at night, the booms are lifted to provide access to the full area, and the night patrol begins.

Meat is used to lure the lions back inside the camps in the mornings.

"One can't feel safer than this, because I know no one can get in," says Valerie.

She has a three-month-old boy and is alone on the farm sometimes while Marius entertains visitors at their game farm between Boshoff and Kimberley.

Erwee says they can even leave the doors open in the summer heat.

The Erwees have another four lions for breeding purposes at a nearby camp, and three cubs at home that he is raising by hand.

Has frightening roar

His mother and father, Dawie and Bessie Erwee, live on Helena farm, about a kilometre away.

They have two white lions, a male and a female, guarding their homestead 24/7.

Apparently the white male, Oubaas, packs a roar that would see off any possible intruders, at high speed.

quote:

She has a three-month-old boy and is alone on the farm sometimes while Marius entertains visitors at their game farm between Boshoff and Kimberley.

Erwee says they can even leave the doors open in the summer heat.

This is going to turn out well...

Sounds like it beats a Boer Bull!

Lure them back with meat !

Should be a sum to pay to keep luring them back but heck if you have the meat why not.

If a criminal wanted in bad enough it's a little thing called a bullet..

Jarrod yes but when you here the bullets or shots you will have enough time to cal for help

We used a massive boerboel for the same reason. One morning we woke up with him sick. We took him to the vet where the diagnosis was poisoning. He did live but with a massive vets bill and agony to the dog. If he ate all the meat thrown over the wall he wouldn't of.

A bit of poison in the meat, quick, silent and guess what - you left your doors open.

quote:

boerboel

For those like me who didn't know what a boerboel is:


The Boerboel, the only breed of dog solely and specifically bred to defend the homestead, it has a long history of breeding in many far flung and different regions of South Africa. After this long history of breeding, the breed’s refinement continues to date, however regional differences

quote:

Originally posted by Safari-Hunt:
Jarrod yes but when you here the bullets or shots you will have enough time to cal for help

Like that would do any good especially if they were out a ways
Like my sister for example she has 4 German Shepards that can get in her back door and a black lab and some other kind of dog that kind get in the front door. If someone had good bullet for each of them she is so far out that help would be too late when it got there. and on top of that she doesn't own a firearm.

A friends Rhodesian Ridgeback in Ireland would only eat when my buddy Greg gave hime the food, and instructed him to eat.

It was pretty amazing. Once, we went out for the day when Greg forgot to tell Roady to eat. When we came back the food was untouched, the dog just staring at it and whimpering.