From MLive. Horse was grazing when she was attacked and dragged down by coyotes near the Lapeer-Oakland county line. We haven’t heard them up here in a while but I might suggest we start turning the fence on again.
eeek so scary, I used to board a cow farm in Idaho and at night you could hear the coyotes howl. It gave me the creeps, but every one told me I was stupid to be afraid of them.
It looks as though I was right. Luckily the coyotes in Idaho left the horses alone but they did get some of the calves.
oops double post
Wow! That is bizarre and terrible!
A pack of coyotes took down a full grown horse near a house in the middle of the day?
We have BUNCHES of coyotes out here - they are small, around 35 pounds, and pose a threat to house cats, young goats / lambs etc, but not much else. Never heard of them going after a horse! In fact my horse LOVES to chase them!
Are midwest / east coast coyotes larger than the “small dog” sized ones we have out here?
Some of the one’s I’ve seen here in Alabama are a lot bigger than the ones I used to see out west. I’m wondering if they’re mixed with domestic dogs.
That’s upsetting to hear.
The coyotes around here are pretty large- about the size of a working breed dog. I see them in the pastures with the cattle in broad daylight all the time. They are around the cattle all the time. They don’t seem aggressive towards the cows, but they certainly don’t seem intimidated by them either.
I have never actually seen them on my property, but I’ve heard them very, very close. We have a wooded area at the far end of our property that butts up to over 100 acres of pasture land and I’m sure they cross through there.
I have a donkey, although I honestly have no idea how she’d react to a bunch of coyotes in the pasture! I’d actually be more worried about her than the horses if they attacked-- she’s the smallest out of the herd!
Sounds to me like there may have been something wrong with the horse like maybe she was down and colicy. Another is that she was just laying down. I cannot picture even a pack of these taking down a standing healthy full grown horse…makes zero sense.
I agree, something sounds wrong. We have lots of coyotes in So. California and we see them around the hills. They always stay far away from the horses. I can’t imagine a pack going after a horse and being successful.
coyotes killed a min-horse i my neighborhood a few months ago. NC
Here in Il our coyotes are the size of large mixed breed dogs- upwards of 50 pounds. The 25-35 pounders are no more in this area. They have evolved -maybe dog influx I do not know, but they are larger than they were when I was growing up. We have always lost barn cats to them as well as 2 dogs under ten pounds. In both dog instances, two of the pack took after the larger dog whilst the rest of the pack grabbed the smaller dog and ran before my father could grab his gun.
In the north east the coyotes are mixed with the Eastern wolf. They are large and have more wolf like habits. They came east from the Michigan area, supposedly and interbred with canadian wolves as they came. Don’t know if this helps the discussion any.
The coyotes howl at night at my barn. But they do not come up to the barn. But it sounds like hundreds of dogs when they go in a howling frenzy. Scary to know they killed a horse!
[QUOTE=Ambitious Kate;7979111]
In the north east the coyotes are mixed with the Eastern wolf. They are large and have more wolf like habits. They came east from the Michigan area, supposedly and interbred with canadian wolves as they came. Don’t know if this helps the discussion any.[/QUOTE]
This…I watched a documentary on it. This cross breeding has produced a new species that tends to hunt in packs (coyotes traditionally hunt alone or in pairs, but the is changing in some parts of the world).
I was surprised to find out there are more of these "coyote.Eastern Wolf crosses in the more populated areas of the East. However I also doubt they could take take a grown horse…but if the horse was tied and could not get away…maybe?
We have both coyotes & actual wolves out here and I know I’ve lost some cats to the coyotes…but never anything else.
I just read a Facebook post this morning that stated that DNA tests are showings that in the Mid Atlantic and upper states that have Wolves, some of the coyotes are actually wolf-coyote crosses. They cannot say how recently the crosses occurred but they have also found skulls that show this hybridization. The hybrids have larger, stouter teeth and skulls than pure coyotes and have been taking down deer. I wish I could share a link but I have no idea how. Check out www.nationalgeographic.com
I don’t know that ours hunt in packs per say like wolves as we haven’t lost cattle yet but they certainly are smart enough to split up and cause diversions.
My horses are dog chasers so I feel OK…although they are not spring chickens so hoping our hunters get some coyotes this winter.
This is graphic but shows some coyotes cornering and killing a whitetail buck through harassment and exhausting the animal. Watch the time stamps to see just how long this goes on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MocKEor1BM8
Obviously a whitetail is not a horse, but it’s a good example.
Coyotes are insanely adaptable and intelligent. They are starting to change behavior and expand their ranges and the animals they hunt.
I can see a group of them wearing down and killing a horse through several hours, especially if the horse was indeed colicing or caught “down” for whatever reason.
Ours are very bold and very large. I could see it happening.
I can’t see coy-wolf down this far (there aren’t any wolves in the LP yet, though the packs in the UP are over 800 individuals now and will probably make it south.) That far south there aren’t cougars, either (a very few in the north) and even bear would be an extreme rarity. But I can see them getting bigger. Tons of deer and small game and human garbage to eat, very limited hunting and trapping of coyotes. And as cold as it’s gotten they might be packing up and bold enough to take on a horse. Also doesn’t say how deep the snow is on that side of the state.
In 1990 I was driving late at night and saw a pack of very large animals chasing a cat down a driveway. There were a few fairly high snow drifts alongside the road, and the cat took advantage of me slowing down and flicking my high beams to slip into a driveway as the pack (five or six) crossed in front of my car.
I thought maybe they were wolves they were so big.
This was eastern Chittenden County in Vermont.
First they said they don’t run/hunt in packs, but they do. Then they said they wouldn’t attack and kill people, but we now know they will. Maybe not often, but they have. They also said they wouldn’t attack horses and now they have. I read nothing indicating there was a thing wrong with the horse; only that it was taken down by the coyotes in broad daylight. The horse, used to dogs, may not have even put up much of a struggle before it was overcome.
I hear coyote(S), yes, that is plural as it’s always multiples I hear, easily two or three, EVERY DAY and sometimes twice a day as in the very early morning when I am out feeding and then again, after dusk, when I am also out feeding. Sometimes I hear a pack over across the road and another off behind our property, having opposing sing-a-longs. If I didn’t consider them a serious threat, it would be kind of neat and beautiful but to me, it’s rather ominous.
Down here, they are big , 40-60 pounds. My nephew shot one that weighed 60 plus. I am not dismissive about their potential threat any more. We keep at least two LGDs at all times and do have a miniature donkey who hopefully is an added noise deterrent if nothing else. We’ve seen them during the day, not often, but the times we have, the coyote was fairly nonchalant about it and didn’t hightail it out of sight. It was more akin to flippin’ the bird and sauntering off.
I know two people who say coyotes killed older, fragile horses out in the pasture; one down around Auburn, AL and another in Franklin Station, TN. If you’re in an area heavily populated by coyotes, I would be careful about my small ponies, foals and geriatric horses.
Coyotes completely decimated our barn cat population before we got Livestock Guardian Dogs. Personally, I’d rather not have to have the big dogs as they are hard on the landscaping as ours have access to the whole property which is perimeter fenced, but they are very effective.
