I thought of this thread this morning when I was serenaded by what I assume were coyotes.
They were close by.
Nothing in my barn (cats or horses) seemed the slightest bit worried.
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Down here in the southeast we have lots of coyotes. There is a band of them that runs the creek bed nearby and they are LOUD at night. We occasionally get one passing through, and have lost a chicken or two, and most likely a couple of barn cats (why they sleep out in the woods when there is a perfectly good barn and garage I have no idea!) But they are completely uninterested in something as big as a horse. (Plus, mine would squash them flat if they tried anything.)
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True coyotes are scavengers and also prey on small animals but I donât think there is much evidence of preying on large animals or humans. That said, evolution is real. Over time itâs quite possible that a band might lose some of its instinctive fears.
Coydogs and other crossbreeds seem to be around in many areas. We donât have them in our valley in East TN AFAIK. They might have a very different instinctive fear mechanism.
One possibility not mentioned, and likely the most dangerous animal to humans or large livestock, would be feral dogs. In some areas around us they are a REAL threat and because they are a domestic animal gone back to nature they DONâT have the instinctive fears of true wild animals. People often abandon animals in the wooded areas around us and if they survive they will form packs and are difficult to deal with.
G.
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we had coyotes here, appears they ate all the small animals and went on to another more productive area⊠or the red tailed hawks have beaten them back as this group of hawks that moved in are pretty protective of their territory
yet through this all we still have bunny rabbits
That because while bunny rabbits are poor at subtraction they are very good at multiplication!!! 
G.
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I know of one instance here in SoCal where a small group of coyotes attacked two horses with riders up and chased them. Nipping at the feet of the riders.
I do think, based on your description of your horseâs injuries, that youâre dealing with feral dogs or dogs that belong to someone and roam at night. Definitely call your local Fish & Wildlife. Iâd call your local Animal Control as well. This wonât be the first instance of such an attack in the area. They will more than likely know. The solar, motion-detector lights work well - as in the come on. I donât know if they deter. A hot-wire at the top and along the bottom of the fence might help.
If you can rig up a motion-detector that blasts them with sound that might help too. I second Great Pyrenees.
We had two roaming dogs here that were killing livestock and chickens. The Doberman is buried under my neighborâs sheep and goats that it killed. They didnât kill for food. They killed for sport. The injuries were the same as you described. Multiple killings in one night are usually dogs. Coyotes will remove their prey or eat it on the spot. Your horseâs injuries could also indicate a cougar. I donât know if you have them in your area. Good luck! I hope your horse heals and you all get some sleep.
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We had a farm in Kentucky near the Ohio River where we had a major problem with a pack of dogs who would circle the house at night like a pack of wolves. I ended the problem by driving steel post into the ground, attached a big hunk of meat that was draped over the steel post then wrapped with fencing wire then connected to a powerful electric fence charger.
That night the pack returned, found the temping meat and that was the last I ever saw of this or any other pack of dogs⊠the yelping of the dogs as they ran off lasted for at least a few miles
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Here in Indiana they are considered a nuisance animal and there are zero restrictions on hunting them. It might be an unpopular opinion, but find a responsible hunter outside of deer season who wants to shoot at something. Itâs quite common to pay a hunter here to remove a coyote problem. If itâs threatening my horses then itâs dead.
We had a pack of coyotes on our property a few weeks ago, coming very close to the barns. My SO sat out for a few nights and shot at them several times (nothing dead and no signs of blood) and the pack seems to have moved on. They donât tend to pack hunt which is why he sat out.
That said I have never heard of coyotes bringing down adult horses and I imagine your injuries are due to packs of dogs. The injuries on multiple horses say dogs because a well coordinated hunting pack is going to pick one small, weak, slow horse and bring it down as a team.
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In California you are not allowed to shoot at them with anything but a paint gun. Our stupid next-door neighbor let one live in his backyard unbeknownst to us for a month⊠and we had a Chihuahua (and 2 large dogs) at the time. I called Animal Control who referred me to Wildlife Services who said there was nothing I could do but try to scare it away with a paint gun. The coyote that lived next door was not typical of the usual coyotes in California, it looked more like a cross between coyote and wolf, much more beefy and fluffy fur than the usual skinny small coyotes in our area. It definitely was not a dog. I have a video of him/her running and playing next to one of our chain link fences with our dogs on the other side of the fence. I also witnessed this thing jumping into our yard from the neighborâs backyard, walking across ours, jumping up our at least 5â chain link, perch on it like a canary (with all 4 feet at the top) and then jump down. Fortunately, it never tried to kill our dogs and it moved on from the guyâs backyard. (Idiot told us it made him feel closer to nature.)
Here is the video of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYCM_JeyxNU
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My understanding is that coyotes throughout New England tend to have wolf DNA because they came in from the west (theyâre not native here) via Canada, passing north of the Great Lakes, and interbred with wolves there.
I heard a recommedation that when you have tuna or similar canned meat, you leave the lid partially attached, then fold it back & use it to hook the unrinsed can onto the wire. I recently did that with cat food and salmon tins on our 5-strand Electrobraid llama fence (lowest strand at about 6") and noticed a few days later that our dog appeared to have renewed respect for the fence.
There was an article years ago in the Boston Globe Magazine (Sunday newspaper supplement) about someone who studied several packs of coyotes in Rhode Island. For some reason it stuck in my head . . . I definitely remember the bit where he said the best-controlled pack in the area was one around a (dairy? I think) farm. The old farmer would shoot at them, but he was a lousy shot so he never hit them. Nevertheless, they recognized the threat and kept a low profile and out of trouble - but because none were killed, the pack structure stayed intact so the older coyotes taught the youngsters to behave.
(I believe in the same article there was also a case where a pack was broken up - many members killed - the young survivors, without the elders and the rest of the pack, caused all sorts of problems.)
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I have seen a coyote jump a 6â block wall in a single leap. Horse fencing will not keep them out. If your problem is as bad as you think, I would not leave any animal out, especially at night. I can say the coyotes here are quite large, in part because their habitat is shrinking. Only the biggest/strongest survive. I had a big male in our road. I was in my truck, and the darned thing just stared me down and would not move. This is in broad daylight! They are very bold and do not underestimate them.
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The âcoyotesâ I have seen have all been at least the size of the one in the youtube Tyrusâ mom put up (above), and many have been wider through the body, and even some taller. Quite fluffy coats and tails. Larger and broader faces, not the skinny snout, small, thin, long legged types at all.
Iâm sure they are hybrids like the documentary I posted said (âMeet the Coywolfâ). Larger body animals with bushy tails and very brazen. The ones that followed and stalked us on a trail ride were of a quite large variety, larger than the ones in the documentary.
Iâve since watched videos of people walking dogs in broad daylight and coyotes coming up to get the dog and even chasing a woman carrying her dog, right up to a house.
It was unlikely to be a cougar, not sure we have them here anymore. My mare did get long, minor scratches down her side, but she is notorious for squeezing through small spaces even though she is very large, and I attributed it to scratching herself on something, not large cat attack. If there are any, they could be here though, as my horses are in an area where 3 large state parks surround the farm. People report seeing black bears once in a while, but that is about it.
redsoxluvr - Agreed, they are quite big here, and completely unafraid of people. Iâve been within 10 feet of them on numerous occasions, and they just sit and watch, unaffected by my presence. When they have come out of the woods together and watch me ride its quite unnerving, as 6-7 of them could take me out with ease, and likely my horse if they knew the right things to do. They skulk around the houses at night, right up onto decks, and walk though barns regularly. Their howls and yips of communication are eerie and unnerving.
We had a rabid fox jump through the small square grain hole in the bars of a stall, and go after a horse a few years ago at another farm of a friend. He picked the wrong one though, the mare squashed his whole body to a pancake, which was found the next morning. Fox tested positive for rabies. Multiple vets and people could not find a single mark on the mare. She was fine.
If its not coyote or hybrids that have torn deer apart in the woods like Iâve seen, perhaps it is dogs.
Well off to clean out a stall that has hay and shavings in it for my fiesty and very smart mare who has kept my big mare safe from dogs in the past, along with working on some hot wire along the top of the fence. The owner has been working on the fence, and although it wonât ensure they canât get in, perhaps it will be enough of a deterrent to help. In the meantime my mare is stallbound anyway.
Iâm not even going to mention the creepy man that came into my office suite last night, and had to be taken away by the police. Tought me not to work late, and alone for sure! Seems everyone wants a piece of my little family!! Having quite the run here!!
Iâm also of the opinion it is more likely to be dogs than coyotes which are responsible for the damage described.
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Thank you everyone for your help. I really appreciate it. I have lots to think about, and some things to try.
Seems we all are thinking a pack of dogs or at least hybrids that are acting outside the norm. I remember when I was a kid we had an issue with dogs going after everything at night, other domestic animals, livestock, deer, etc. They had chased a few deer out onto thin ice, as well as a horse, all of which were found the next spring when the ice thawed.
My mareâs wounds had a fair amount of pus tonight, instead of the serum and blood she has had. She has been on antibiotics for a week. The vet had just come again and flushed and really cleaned them up just a few days ago. Ugh⊠seems she is going to need something more significant to get rid of the infection.
The owner is changing up the fencing. He put up metal mesh, rectangular type/shape, its goat or sheep fencing I think. He attached it to the posts and fence boards. Then he strung electric wire as well, standing out from the posts and mesh fencing. With the top electric wire directly over the mesh, its about 6 feet tall Iâd say. Perhaps it will help steer them away some, if we are lucky.
We donât have the usual turkey, deer, or rabbits around, just lots of coyote scat. I guess the local bunnies around here arenât as good at multiplication as the ones near Guilherme!
Wildlife biologist here - this is not how habitat loss works. It is very energetically expensive to be large (just ask your horse), even harder to be a predator. As habitats & resource banks shrink, we most often see body size decrease in vertebrates. Coyotes are successful because they are opportunistic omnivores & we sorely need them because we were foolish enough to get rid of wolves, causing trickle effects all down the system. (Population explosions of mesopredators like possums, skunks, raccoons, over population of deer in the SE with rampant disease issues, to name a few) Coyotes are also extremely intelligent & prefer the easiest meal possible. Itâs way too risky to go after a healthy adult horse, chance of burning calories for no return is very high, they will choose a better gamble, such as small mammals or better yet, a trash can, guaranteed not to flee!
Concur with others that you are dealing with dogs or coydogs. Talk to your local wildlife officer (your DNR should have a helpline number on their website) to find out if you need a depredation permit, regs vary by state. In NC, you would not need a permit to shoot dogs or hybrids.
On the topic of âcoywolvesâ, there are not rampant F1 (first generation) hybrids roaming the eastern part of the country. There may be some outbreeding many generations back, resulting in genetic material overlap. Someone made a good analogy earlier that it was like calling a modern Hanoverian a TB-hybrid, not really accurate. By the current thresholds of genetic species distinctions, coyotes remain separate from all types of wolves.
And it should go without saying, but everything on YouTube should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Heck, I gave up on Discovery Channel when they referred to sea turtles as âthe worldâs largest amphibians.â facepalm
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A friend was on a deer stand here in central Virginia. He witnessed 2 coyotes attacking a mature buck. One coyote was biting the hocks of the deer while the other was harassing the front end. For some reason the coyotes stopped their attack, but the buck was obviously badly injured and lame on the hind leg.
He told me about the attack that night. The following day my lab found the injured buck. The coyote had severed the ligaments and tendons on that hind leg making it non functional. It was only a matter of time before the deer succumbed to his injuries, or became so weak he wasnât able to defend himself.
I have seen several coyotes up close and personal. The ones we have here are close to the same height/length as our 65lb lab.
We have the nite guard lights and swear by them. The coyote run along both sides of our home field. But weâll placed lights keep them out.
Im so sorry this happened to you
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And are still very small (30-40lb). Not big enough to rip the throat out of a horse.
As far as I know, there isnât a lot of reports here for coydogs either.
You should take those articles with a grain of salt - all of them were written by laypeople to be sensationalist. The eastern coyote here is still very small. If you saw the size difference between an average dog (say, a labrador), a coyote, an eastern coyote, and a wolf, maybe it would make more sense about why proposing a band of coyotes was responsible for that behavior isnât necessarily consistent with the species. Have you ever seen a size-difference graph? Itâd be like comparing a shetland (coyote) to a tall shetland (eastern coyote) to a welsh (labrador) to a warmblood. The size difference is astronomical between coyotes, dogs, and wolves.
Does someone live on property? Even a pack of dogs in this area is rare, and they would be making a lot of noise that people would hear. Dogs are not silent when theyâre chasing quarry. Like another poster said it is not really their style to eat what they harass - they tend to just chase and worry the animals and then move onto the next target. IME a lot of horses get seriously hurt this way trying to go through fences, or run into objects in their panic. If someone can invest in a trail cam, it might give you an idea of whatâs lurking around here⊠and theyâre fun to watch since sometimes you get to see animals interact with one another.
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OP - while youâre reinforcing the fence from the top - be sure to also look down. The dogs that were attacking here dug under the fence. They were large dogs. I was amazed at how small the hole they dug was under the fence.
Good luck!
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The best thing to kept canines (wolves/coyotes/dogs/any combination) off your farm is a pack of your own livestock guardian dogs. Great Pyrs have been recommended above, and they are good, but have tendencies to wander. I personally have two Kangals and a Karakachan that protect my 19 acre sheep field. Watching them work is fascinating.
I am sorry about your horseâs injuries!
