This was rather local to me and there was a lot on FB about it. . .the horse was healthy but 27 years old. Apparently the 'yotes spooked her, she slipped and fell on the ice, and once she was down they attacked her.
A lot of coyote hunters have been jumping in and offering their services. One posted a pic of a coyote they had killed in Shiawassee county (nearby). It weighed 75 pounds. A pack of those could take down something pretty big.
I lost an old and sick mini to coyotes. I’d had her penned away from the other horses so I could try and get more feed in her, and I had the dogs in the house because they were going crazy barking at the coyotes. I never thought she’d be in danger, close to the house. I’ll never forgive myself for letting her go through that.
StG
People underestimate coyotes. They typically go for smaller animals, but a larger pack can and will take down larger animals. I also wonder if these were coy wolves, coyote/wolf hybrids that are becoming more common. And regular coyotes seem to be changing too. The ranchers I work with in the southwest have noted that the coyotes seem to be bigger and more agressive over the last few years. And I have seen some really large coyotes the last couple years, and they are different colored. And we don’t have coy wolves here, so I don’t know. But I don’t trust them NOT to ever attack a large animal. If they can get it cornered and even just stop it from moving around, they can start eating out the hind end with it still standing. I have seen a picture taken by a game camera of a single coyote eating the hind end out a standing deer. Sorry to be so graphic, but it does happen and people should just be aware if there are packs of coyotes around.
Maybe coy-dogs, if coy-wolves do not extend that far. Our coyotes are very small by comparison, and scrawny and quite careful and wary. They survive 90% on rodents. But not opposed to the odd small dog
[QUOTE=Foxtrot’s;7983579]
Maybe coy-dogs, if coy-wolves do not extend that far. Our coyotes are very small by comparison, and scrawny and quite careful and wary. They survive 90% on rodents. But not opposed to the odd small dog[/QUOTE]
Maybe in your neck of the woods they’re small and scrawny but the “coyotes” around here are coyote-wolf hybrids (proven by DNA analysis) and are on average 60 lbs+.
And yes, they have killed full grown horses - rare, but they have. Five years ago in the summer, a broodmare in a herd of 20 was killed in a back paddock about two miles up the road from my boarding barn and about a mile from a town with a population of 165,000. It was a pack (definitely not dogs or coyote/dog hybrids) and they ate 10% of the carcass before it was found the following morning.
And as I stated before, it’s an extremely rare occurrence but still possible.
Graphic picture at link. Coyotes will take bigger game, deer in the case of the linked picture. It is rare, but again, I wouldn’t underestimate a pack of coyotes. They are very opportunistic animals.
http://s42.photobucket.com/user/shoot-it/media/deereaten_zpsafc4b9e7.jpg.html
I swear when I heard the coyotes over on one of the timber roads next door last night, it sounded like more than three individual voices, more like 5. They’ve been really vocal and really close lately. Between one neighbor’s goats and another’s free ranging guineas, they’re drawn in. Yesterday I saw on FB where the county shelter had picked up a big male Great Pyrenees who was available for adoption and my husband went over and checked him out today. He’ll be coming home post-neutering on Monday. Our oldest guy is 12 and basically retired and our female is only four months so I’m sure Cosmo, our Maremma could use the help with as active as our local coyote population is.
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