Could it be a pack of feral dogs? I don’t have experience with either but from what I’ve read on here they tend to be much bolder and prone to going after large animals like horses.
[QUOTE=goodhors;8991924]
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.[/QUOTE]
I don’t know about the cattle (I am in the GR area and have seen single coyotes but they run or are road kill) but the story about the horse was proven not true, just FYI:
http://www.michigansthumb.com/news/article/DNR-says-animal-didn-t-attack-Thumb-horse-7263890.php
"Russ Mason, chief of the state Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Division, said the veterinarian reported to the DNR that the injury to the horse was consistent with “the kind of thing that he or she had seen before with an animal running into a fence.”
The horse’s leg was partially severed and the horse, named Bo, was bleeding from an artery when it was found, according to a Facebook post by Natoshia Lace Lunney, identifying herself as “the daughter of the owner of the farm in question.”
goat on the loose, all the horses in the neighborhood thought a space craft had landed when there were nothing more than two goats
Right, my horses who have never been more than politely interested in the coyotes all grew about 6 inches and breathed fire when we brought home the sheep. 
At certain times of the year, our herd is afraid of the wild turkeys that hang out with the horses all year long. The testosterone level changes, I guess and the big Toms are pretty impressive.
OP, can you keep your horses in the barn at night!
Could it be deer?
Re staying in at night
[QUOTE=Magicboy;8992208]
At certain times of the year, our herd is afraid of the wild turkeys that hang out with the horses all year long. The testosterone level changes, I guess and the big Toms are pretty impressive.
OP, can you keep your horses in the barn at night![/QUOTE]
They are in tonight, its cold-to me 60’s-and rain allll night. Plus it’s stupid fireworks night. The TB is happy in at night, it’s what he’s used to, plus that alfalfa…
The Sheriff Pone hates being locked in, period. He can’t seem to relax and murders me with his eyes in the am.
The second scary night Pone was rearing and spinning and threatening to jump the 5 ft stall door. He’s 14hh. And wouldn’t eat his handful of pellets, so I just let him out.
So better or worse, they’re in tonight. I just hope the Pone doesn’t try any stupid escape moves.
Re staying in at night
[QUOTE=Magicboy;8992208]
At certain times of the year, our herd is afraid of the wild turkeys that hang out with the horses all year long. The testosterone level changes, I guess and the big Toms are pretty impressive.
OP, can you keep your horses in the barn at night![/QUOTE]
They are in tonight, its cold-to me 60’s-and rain allll night. Plus it’s stupid fireworks night. The TB is happy in at night, it’s what he’s used to, plus that alfalfa…
The Sheriff Pone hates being locked in, period. He can’t seem to relax and murders me with his eyes in the am.
The second scary night Pone was rearing and spinning and threatening to jump the 5 ft stall door. He’s 14hh. And wouldn’t eat his handful of pellets, so I just let him out.
So better or worse, they’re in tonight. I just hope the Pone doesn’t try any stupid escape moves.
I’m sure it wasn’t deer, they graze with them a lot. And plain 'ol dogs are ‘Meh’. There has been no evidence of pigs, no dug up spots I used to see in Fla.
Tue coyotes are under 25lbs and horses know they are no threat so it’s probably not coyotes or your pony is being extremely dramatic. If you live in an area with the wold/ coyote hybrids then it might be those, they are large and much bolder. Or feral dogs. I’d be careful of either of those.
Once we had some escaped emus show up. Pandelerium!! Horses AND humans running hither and yon in a tizzy. Dogs retreated into the barn claiming dinosaurs were not in the contract. And emus are difficult to capture once they’ve had a taste of freedom. That was quite a week in the neighborhod.
Horses can be extremely funny at what they get all worked up over.
One day my neighbors cow was out wondering on the road and all three of my horses were running around my nine acres like lunatics. Now they don’t mind the hundreds of cows that are in the pasture across the street. But one in the road makes them bat crap crazy!
coyotes don’t usually bother horses. If you see them in or near the pasture - they are most likely hunting for rodents - which comprises 98 % of their diet. I would say it might be the deer hunters - I was farm sitting not to long ago and the hunters were out late evening and very early morning and the horses were going nuts - nothing I could do though as the hunter had permission on the next door neighbors land. Also - a few yrs ago - a hunter shot a deer about 1/2 mile away and he didn’t get a good shot - it ran & died near my turn out shed! I keep my horses in at night for these reasons - I never have trouble from coyotes - now the neighbors dogs - thats another story!!
Coyotes here are the size of large German shepherds. They come into my back yard and are very aggressive. I lock mine up at night. Those bastards hunt in packs and WILL lure away and eat your house dogs in the winter when food gets scarce. Small donkeys are also not immune to a group hunt. Unfortunately, hunting them only seems to increase their numbers if you look at recent research. Best bet is to remove tempting and easy prey foodstuffs.
[QUOTE=Ticker;8991657]
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.[/QUOTE]
if they attacked a full grown man and a full grown horse (especially just two, and not a full ‘pack’) they were not coyotes.
maybe dogs - especially pariah ones. a two-individual coyote ‘pack’ would not go after a horse. not even an eastern coyote.
we have co-existed with eastern coyotes (which are very big/heavy here) and coyotes for years - and are in between two family-owned farm with livestock (sheep, goats and cows). the worst damage any of us have received from coyotes has been them getting a lamb or two in the spring.
[QUOTE=snowrider;8992526]
Once we had some escaped emus show up.d.[/QUOTE]
emus, wild pigs, eagles, owls, wild cats are not even looked at by the horses …but the kangaroo was different. My cousin had one show up, it had escaped from a wildlife ranch …it caused everything to take notice
[QUOTE=beowulf;8996494]
if they attacked a full grown man and a full grown horse (especially just two, and not a full ‘pack’) they were not coyotes.
maybe dogs - especially pariah ones. a two-individual coyote ‘pack’ would not go after a horse. not even an eastern coyote.
we have co-existed with eastern coyotes (which are very big/heavy here) and coyotes for years - and are in between two family-owned farm with livestock (sheep, goats and cows). the worst damage any of us have received from coyotes has been them getting a lamb or two in the spring.[/QUOTE]
It’s great that you have nice coyotes that behave as coyotes generally do.
The two I witnessed circling my mare were coyotes, maybe mixed with something else as stated. My pregnant mare was a recipient mare and was shipped to us with a limp. The limp clearly made her appear more vulnerable. Also, one of the coyotes was visibly limping, which is why I had the sheriff out. A desperate coyote will do what it has to. Clearly I needed to go into the limping mare, limping coyote detail.
The young farmer told me it was a large pack that came after him, it was not his only experience with them.
Who knows what the coyotes are breeding with in my area. Some of them no longer demonstrate typical coyote behavior.
My experience with coyotes is not same as your experience with coyotes…it happens.
I saw a coyote not long ago that I still swear up and down was a wolf. It was just huge, 75 lbs or more, and coyotes are supposed to max out at 45 lbs or so. Only thing is, wolves are more or less extinct in the wild where I live. So… What the heck, coyotes?!?
[QUOTE=Ticker;8997271]
It’s great that you have nice coyotes that behave as coyotes generally do.
The two I witnessed circling my mare were coyotes, maybe mixed with something else as stated. My pregnant mare was a recipient mare and was shipped to us with a limp. The limp clearly made her appear more vulnerable. Also, one of the coyotes was visibly limping, which is why I had the sheriff out. A desperate coyote will do what it has to. Clearly I needed to go into the limping mare, limping coyote detail.
The young farmer told me it was a large pack that came after him, it was not his only experience with them.
Who knows what the coyotes are breeding with in my area. Some of them no longer demonstrate typical coyote behavior.
My experience with coyotes is not same as your experience with coyotes…it happens.[/QUOTE]
nothing about ‘nice’… just telling you what is biological behavior for the species canis latrans.
just like you don’t see peacocks lay eggs in eagle nests, or giraffes eat moss.
coyotes are pretty well documented… and yet, to my knowledge, there is no evidence of adult coyotes bringing down adult deer. they mostly eat rodents; mice, voles, muskrats, beavers. a study on eastern coyote diets revealed they ate lots of venison, but experts speculate the venison was scavenged from road kill, natural death, and killing fawns almost immediately after birth. no reports of them bringing down anything larger than a calf. they’re opportunistic, but they’re also smart about the risk/benefit to bringing down bigger game – that is why you rarely see coyotes attack anything bigger than calves, goat kids, lambs, or small livestock animals. they will not expend valuable energy to bring down large prey, and they do not have the weight or stamina in which to do it. they simply do not have the tools needed to bring down larger game without getting hurt – unlike wolves, they don’t use the ‘grab the hock’ tactic as successfully and they rarely hunt in packs.
i am not doubting what you saw - i am certain if you said you saw two canines try to eat your mare and two canines try to kill a man, that is what happened… but i would bet good money that they were not coyotes. i would bet money they were dogs, or wolfdogs.
for the record… i live in the NE with a booming eastern coyote, western coyote and coydog population… our coyote subspecies are anything but nice.
Mine were being weird recently, and I found out our local police chief authorized trapping of the coyotes. So mine weren’t so much scared of coyotes, but the sad noises of trapped coyotes:(. Not a fan of coyotes, but prefer quick death for even nuisance animals when possible. May want to see if anything like that might be happening.
Agree normal coyotes aren’t that bad, but I’ve seen them get clever in groups of 3 or more. I had a friend with a mini and Clydesdale on farm in NC - Clydesdale killed coyote in pasture protecting the mini! And I’d worry if I had small, old, or otherwise weakened horses.
A friend went to check on his calving cows one evening.
He found a cow down calving, a half moon of 11 or 12 coyotes some laying behind her, had already killed the calf, that was still half in her and injured her severely.
Guess they were waiting to jump on her again, once she quit struggling and fighting them.
Did they bring her down, or just attacked once she was down and calving?
Coyotes are opportunistic and will try anything.
Two years ago we had an explosion around here of rodents and rabbits and birds and now we have one of coyotes.
I see a few hit on the highways every week.
Most are fat and fuzzy and there are many of them, they are getting very brazen.
I expect in a few years we will have many scrawny coyotes fighting for territory, is the way that works here.
We are also seeing some wolves, they are definitely very different looking and moving than coyotes.
Most are the smaller mexican wolves turned loose in NM and AZ preserves, that didn’t stay there, of course.
One thing you can say about coyotes, you can’t dismiss that they are a predator and that a big animal down for any reason, or that gets scared and runs off, it may be seen possibly as prey and attacked, even if it is not their traditional prey.
Well I went out and walked my property line this morning, looking for tracks. It has absolutely Monsooned for 3 days since my horses were freaked out. I found Bobcat tracks, but no way to know what bothered horses days ago. I do know Bobcats are solitary, so all those eyes I saw that scary night weren’t Bobcats.
In any case, the threat is gone, according to the Sheriff (Pony). If strangers are outside nearby properties, he is on high alert. Today he showed me the unusual activity across the street - 5 acres away. A man was walking down the road, Never happens here…
I have two friends who raise cattle - both are on hundreds of acres and they have not lost a single calf to a coyote. Another friend breeds warmbloods on a uninhabited leased farm and she has not lost a single foal to a coyote.
There is only one documented case of a coyote attacking a human and there are not any pictures so I consider that Undocumented.
According to dogsbite.org in the last ten years - there have been 360 human fatalities due to dogs - primarily pitbulls and rottweilers. I believe there were 15 deaths year 2015. I have witnessed dogs ( owned - not feral or strays) killing or should I say mauling fawns and a kitten.
I am certain that domestic dogs do much more harm to wildlife and livestock than coyotes. Of course - that has been documented using dna and gps collars when studying coyotes - which documents their diet as 98% rodents - with the addition of soft mast and grasshoppers.
Still - the anecdotal stories continue.
