Danged coyotes, freaked horses

[allons-y]

Dang it! The Sheriff Pone says SNORT, spook, freaks out in stall until I let him back out. OTTB says " but I have alfalfa" tries to eat but is nervous since Pone is. Tonite the Pone wouldn’t even come in at all. The Pone was staring into the darkness on high alert. Our pastures back into a neighbors pasture which backs forest/woods area. I hear coyotes in the other direction at night usually. 2 nights/days of freaked out horses, not safe to handle due to startling and plunging. I just let them in and out this am and went to work.

Tonight the Pone wouldn’t even come in to eat, the TB did. I went out with a flash light, thought a dead deer might be in pasture based on hunter noises for days now. No deer body, but lots of eyes shining, low to ground, moving in a non-bounding, not deer-like way. Got my gun and stronger light, they were gone. Horses snorting and running in pasture (nothing chasing them), wouldn’t eat hay I put out. 14 hh Pone is frozen in a 20 foot tall statue of high headed freakazoid. TB zips back and forth mindlessly. Now what do I do? Im off tomorrow, work Sunday from dark am to dark pm.

[poltroon]

I’m surprised coyotes would bother yours. I’ve never had a horse alarmed by coyotes, even when I was a bit alarmed. My mare and I used to chase them out of the arena at night when we lived in Los Angeles.

Maybe something else more scary? Could even be a pig or a cow… oddly those have scared my horses more than coyotes.

[Pocket_Pony]

I also would imagine something other than coyote. Coyotes have never bothered any of my horses. Heck, we’d have one that would make rounds through the pastures and nobody so much as glanced sideways.

Where are you located? Could it be a bear or a big cat?

[FitToBeTied]

We have coyotes, bears, bobcats, etc. and it never phases the horses.

[Bluey]

Where are you?

Feral hogs here scare horses to death.
Coyotes? Not so much.

Even quiet horses can lose it when those hogs come around.

We had one mountain lion run our horses thru a fence.
One of those horses, a coming five year old, never again would leave the pens by the house.
The other horses would leave the barn to go graze and he would start to go with them, then run back to the pens and stay there alone, looking off, scared to death.
We tried all, ponying him from another horse, etc., but once he was away, he became dangerous trying to run back to the barn, he was absolutely terrified and dangerous to handle when he was so scared.
He was not in other places, just in headquarters.

I hope you find what is scaring them so badly, that stress is not a good situation for the horses or for whoever has to handle them when they are so scared they run over you to get away from the horse eating monsters.

[S1969]

Agree with the others. We have packs of coyotes howling every night, from yards to half a mile from my pastures and my horses don’t seem to care. I suspect they know that they could stomp them to bloody bits if they got too close.

Maybe a bear?

[Ticker]

It is possible the coyotes are stalking your horses.

Two Coyotes attacked my pregnant mare. I managed to bring her in before they got her but they did not make it easy. I had the police out afterwards to shoot them but they disappeared.

The young farmer down the road was attacked by a pack of coyotes while working in his field. He managed to get back to his tractor before they got to him. He told me he was never so scared in his life.

Both attacks were during the day, and were thankfully unsuccessful. Now when I hear them, I make sure I have something to protect myself with before I go outside. I’ve also noticed them, on occasion, just watching me from the tree line.

I also suspect that we may have coy-dogs ( coyote/dog mix) which may be why they are not afraid of people and more aggressive.

[saultgirl]

My horses also pay no attention to the coyotes (although they will stop and look if they see/hear anything moving through the brush).

Do you have snow where you are? Maybe you could go out and see what tracks are around?

[Tory]

At my farm the coyotes are terrified of the horses. They will cross the pasture when the horses are out and steer clear of those big crazy horses!

My guess is that it was something else in the woods.

[danacat]

Could be a pack of coyotes moving through your area – coyotes often change their haunts when food runs out, and go looking for a more plentiful location. Could be a fox family looking for new digs. But whatever it was, I doubt your horses are in danger – sounds like a one-off spook episode.

My two mares who live outside 24/7 in my huge back pasture, often stare like statues and/or run around and snort at ‘something’ out in the woods or pasture fringes. I go look – see nothing. I have no idea what in the world they are spooking over. Remains a mystery…

Sometimes I think they ‘see’ things (things they are used to, like deer) just to amuse themselves. Episodes usually end up with them bucking and showing off with tails up – general sillyness.

[OAD_Cowgirl]

As someone mentioned previously, probably coy-dogs. The ones here are in the 70 pound range and they’re not afraid of anything. Farmers lose more than a few calves to them every year, one reason I didn’t de-horn all my cows.
None of my livestock pays any attention to the black bears we have.

[khall]

I have never had any of my horses afraid of coyotes or coy dogs (I have seen them myself, but not big ones) now deer tend to scare them and cows terrify them, never have seen pigs. Goats have become ok now that our close neighbor has two.

[S1969]

Things that do scare my horses:

A helium balloon
My dog wearing a coat
Dog running around with a toy cat
A plastic sled
Baby rabbit in the stall

[2DogsFarm]

Yikes!
I hope for your sake this was a One Of & coyotes will move on or horses will get used to them.
I have had a single coyote cross my pasture so close I got spooked!
Horses were maybe 10ft from me & never twitched an ear.

This is one time I am glad Civilization (in the form of subdivisions) is so near to my farmette.
Most of the acreage near me is cleared for crops, so not a lot of forest for coyotes or anything larger to hide in.
And a lot of the forest has been cleared for the sub-Ds.

What scares my horses:
ME - in a different hat

[Texarkana]

Owning a herd of dimwits who spook for fun, I’m not surprised your horses were freaked out. Anything can spook at least one of my horses when the mood is right. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Old mare spooked at her feed pan last night and got everyone riled up. I mean, c’mon. So any animal rustling in the dark is fair game to get their attention.

Donkeys are supposedly great at thwarting coyotes…

Although my donk basically jumps into my lap for protection when the coyotes are close to my pastures. Not sure what she would do in a close encounter, but the coyotes live so close to my fields that it’s possibly already happened without my knowledge.

[clanter]

goat on the loose, all the horses in the neighborhood thought a space craft had landed when there were nothing more than two goats

[shezabrazenmare]

Mine aren’t afraid of feral hogs or deer or coyotes.
I do try to make them wary of strange humans since we’ve had some break ins at barns around here. White male human break ins.

[goodhors]

Well, don’t discount the horses instincts. Maybe those were hungry coyotes.

Stories last year over in the Thumb area of Michigan with coyotes attacking a horse in the paddock beside the barn. They tore her up bad enough she had to be put down. Lots of controversy on that story. Owners had also reported constant predation of their fowl flock, until the birds were all gone.

Nearby cattle farmer (dairy) claimed to have killed a fair amount, over 10 of the coyotes coming to get his bottle calves in their little pens. On the opposite side of the State, near Grand Rapids, my friend with horses said her Dairy farm neighbor has netted 19 coyotes so far this season. She sees the packs going across their snowy fields on a regular basis. Not even into deep winter yet!

Among the articles in the papers after the horse attack, was information about Coyote DNA testing which shows them crossed with wolves all the way East, in the States. Not hard with wolf populations in MI and winter travel across ice of the Great Lakes. They ARE all the same species, can breed with dogs and wolves, puppies are fertile to breed more.

The wolf crosses are larger, which was part of the issue in the horse attack case. Coyotes are usually smaller, less powerful than the animals seen in the attack. Made the report sound more “made up” with larger coyotes reported. The neighboring dairy farmer had photos of him holding one shot animal up by the tail, arm straight out with nose still reaching the ground. He was NOT a small man, and coyote was a lot larger than it should have been.

So add these ideas to your thinking, don’t get caught up in “how it used to be” when trying to prevent problems. Crossbred animals ARE very smart, think differently.

[candyappy]

I hope for the health and well being of those who live near you and their animals, that you put the gun away and don’t shoot it until you can see ( meaning daylight).

[The_Centaurian]

Your local pack of foxhounds would love to harass those coyote for you!