New to us Coyote problem

[beowulf]

School children not being able to pack lunches because of coyotes in the neighborhood is hyperbolic at best, and exactly the type of fearmongering that happens among suburban folks unfamiliar with wildlife.

Coyotes are watchful. Them staring at something does not correlate to them having any intention to attack something. The few recorded attacks on children have been under the age of six - and frankly, unsupervised. A human adult with children is enough of a deterrent for most predators larger than coyotes.

I am routinely watched by coyotes on my spring hacks and sometimes even doing barn chores. We had one that lived in our grass pasture all summer years ago. Never bothered us, but I never gave him a chance to: chickens are locked up at night.

These reports of losing livestock to coyotes do happen, and I’m telling you as someone with one foot in the agriculture/livestock industry (other side of the family are cattle farmers, angus), coyotes can’t eat your livestock or calves in the middle of being calved if you have the mom appropriately stalled/corralled. I can’t think of a time my other side of the family ever lost a newborn calf to a coyote. Not saying it doesn’t happen - it definitely does - but lock up your animals at night, watch your young children, and collect your vulnerable animals. These deaths and attacks are preventable and are because of poor animal husbandry.

[trubandloki]

I can say that of the things in life that I worry about, the coyotes (which we have where I live too) are not on the list.

I think I end up posting this in every coyote thread.
My horses do not even look up when a coyote trots across the pasture. If the prey animals are not worried about them, I am certainly not at risk.

I try to keep my chickens safe, but sometimes when they are out loose during coop cleaning something gets one (we have lots of things that want to eat chickens).

[beowulf]

@trubandloki

I think I end up posting this in every coyote thread.
My horses do not even look up when a coyote trots across the pasture. If the prey animals are not worried about them, I am certainly not at risk.

You and me both re: posting in every coyote thread!

My horse was not even bothered the time we had three coyotes follow us home on a trail ride. It looked like a mother and two adolescents. I figured if he is not bothered, I am not bothered… and I bet he sees these guys a lot more than I do. I know there are coyotes coming into the paddock because I have seen their footprints in the mud.

Interestingly, my horse hates dogs. I have to warn people on trails when their unleashed dog comes running up to us - he will kick a dog that gets too close and is nervous around them.

[trubandloki]

@beowulf My horse does not like the dogs we encounter on rides either.

[Sandysmom]

@beowulf, in most ranching areas cattle are ranged in pastures ranging from hundreds to thousands of acres. It’s not practical to have every cow that’s due to calves stalled or corralled. Some operations will limit the time the bulls are with the cows or synchronize estrus so cows are calving in a short time window so they can be monitored easily. Some outfits in the north that calves early in the year have large barns for calving. As I said earlier, most of the time we lost calves to coyotes was when the calf was weak or sick. Mom and the herd will do a pretty good job of protecting their babies. Our bulls were good at protecting their herd.

[endlessclimb]

You’re really passionate about coyotes.

Why don’t you take a breath and realize how ridiculous you’re coming across. I’m not sure what got your feathers ruffled, but it wasn’t me, honest. Wrong side of the bed or something…

[beowulf]

It may not be practical, but it is the ethical and responsible thing to do. It’s not practical for us to do it either, but we do it.

[Bluey]

@beowulf

It may not be practical, but it is the ethical and responsible thing to do. It’s not practical for us to do it either, but we do it.

In many/most places you have pastures that are, like ours, canyons, thousands of acres and cows go off far away from the herd to calve alone.
Bulls are not anywhere close to protect them, because bulls are in their own bull pastures, not with the cows at calving time anyway.
To say bulls are protecting them is very strange, as normally bulls are not really with cows but a few months in the late spring early summer and stay close to waterholes, waiting for cows to come in to drink that may be in heat.
Bulls don’t range with cows, other than looking for any to breed.

Maybe with a handful of cows in a little pasture in the East you may have that situation of keeping a bull all the time with those few cows, but I doubt that bull is protecting anything.
Cows do fine protecting calves, nothing like trying to help a calf and it’s mother and any nearby cow right on your back pocket with evil intentions for messing with little fellow calling for help.

[floppyammy]

I have to say, I don’t get everyone’s irrational fears about coyotes. I live in an area where wildlife of all kinds (bear, coyote, fox, fisher cat, raccoon, deer, turkey, etc.) have no choice but to survive alongside an ever-increasing human population. We have a large and healthy coyote population that we see often. I see them at the barn, I see them at my home.

Unless I were an outdoor cat or small unattended dog, I have absolutely no fear or worry about a coyote interaction. I don’t know what all the fuss is about.

[Sandysmom]

@Bluey, I think it depends on the area of the country you’re in and the management style of the particular ranch/farm. Around here, its pretty common to run bulls with cows year round. There are some outfits that limit the time the bulls were with the cows so calves will be born in a 1-2 month time frame. But that requires more bulls, separate bull pastures, more labor to preg check the cows after the breeding season and cull the open cows. It’s also true that in the drier areas of the west, the bulls will lay around the water source and wait for the cows to come to them. We were a fairly small outfit and our bulls ran with the herd year round. The bulls were protective of their cows and calves. We ran mostly Santa Gertrudis and Brahma bulls.

[B-burg_Dressage]

I agree that bulls aren’t the lone protector. Cows are a lot meaner. Heck, I saw the momma goats circle around the kids when a dog got in the pasture.

A good electric fence. Animals brought in to a central area during calving/kidding season. Both of these go a lot further to stopping animal attacks than shooting the animals–and they’re a lot better for our ecosystem.

I used to work for a cattle operation and they planned 1-2 months of birthing each spring and fall. Cows got shipped into the lot for that time period. Literally rounded them up over hundreds of acres of pasture across several counties and trucked in. Not as easy as shooting a coyote, but people were around to help a cow who was struggling and there were no predator issues with all those cows together to protect each other.

There are different ways to do things. Bring them in and protect them, or be willing to risk a higher percentage of loss due to weather/animal struggling during labor/predator/whatever.

[candyappy]

@Rackonteur

Are the children carrying their lunches with them? Maybe they should start buying their lunches inside the school?

You are joking? I hope?

[beowulf]

I didn’t say anything about bulls protecting cows, that was another poster.

Our family’s set up is to bring the cows into a main 2 acre pasture about a month before they’re due to calve. They mill around in this rendezvous point for a few weeks after, keeps the calves within our line of sight and easily caught if there are any issues.

[skydy]

In the OP’s situation, where the coyotes have climbed a backyard fence and killed a pet, I think the best option, when the coyotes are watching the barn, is a human moving toward them using the loud canned air horn used to frighten bears.
Coyote rollers on the fences should keep them from accessing backyards.

[Bluey]

@beowulf

I didn’t say anything about bulls protecting cows, that was another poster.

Our family’s set up is to bring the cows into a main 2 acre pasture about a month before they’re due to calve. They mill around in this rendezvous point for a few weeks after, keeps the calves within our line of sight and easily caught if there are any issues.

Sorry, was talking in general after responding to some in what was quoted.

We check cows daily, heifers several times a day, in very large pastures.
We feed in designated feed grounds in certain spots, count how many come to eat cowcake so as to drop the right amount for those, then keep looking for more, call and feed in the next feed ground, etc.
Any cow we know was close and is missing we then go look for her, many times we have a horse along so we can ride where we can’t drive to.
If the missing cow is where she gave birth and doesn’t want to come eat, we ease up and drop feed close by for her, back off and generally they come eat, those are rather feral cows.

The trouble is when a cow lays a new calf down and goes to feed or water, some times over a mile away and before she gets back something, coyote, bobcat, mountain lion got the calf.
If the cow or any cow is anywhere close and the calf bawls, they run to see about the calf and will be scary enough to run even mountain lions off.
Sadly at times is too late.

Bringing to traps or pens many cows about to calve is not the best.
Commingling 24/7 can transmit infections so much easier, stressing cows that normally would want to go find a quiet spot to calve, etc. is a trade off with them calving out on their own.
Since many years we had 100% of calves born weaned, it was worth for us to calve outside.

[rockymouse]

This is the type of operation I’m familiar with as well. I’m not a rancher, but our dear friends are, and I dayworked with them just this week, gathering heifers, putting five stray pairs into the right pasture, and moving a bull. Their place is more than 50,000 acres. Mamas drop their babies in craggy canyons and bulls live a segregated life in their own pasture, except for a few months when they cover the girls. The bulls I’ve seen haven’t been too altruistic or protective. Coyotes are despised and shot on sight, exactly because of the scenario told upthread, about preying on a cow downed while giving birth. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens.

We have a population of pronghorn here that has been a subject of intensive study for their precipitous decline in numbers. Some of you may not know that although pronghorn have the ability to jump, they vastly prefer to go under fences instead of over them. Net fencing is part of the pronghorns’ problem. Biologists told me that coyotes have figured this out, and have been known to run pronghorn into the corner of a net-fenced pasture, where they cannot easily escape.

A coyote snatched one of my chickens this week; perhaps we were too tardy in shutting their pen one evening. Or perhaps it snuck up in daylight, who knows. We don’t shoot at them here and the horses pay them no mind except to perhaps raise their heads to look at them briefly. We are pretty live-and-let-live types at our little place. The horses and chickens are mostly pets, and we stop what we’re doing to listen to the coyotes sing when the train goes by. I surprised one by the barn the other day. I yelled at him and he glanced over his shoulder at me as he sauntered away. I couldn’t help but admire the depth and redness of his coat.

[cutter99]

I am in TN, where cattle are run in much small parcels of land than what @Bluey and @rockymouse are talking about. Our bulls stay in and run with the cows all year, and heifers once they are of breeding age, unless a bull is moved to another pasture that does not have a bull or he is moved out to plan for certain calving dates.

We check our cattle daily at minimum, multiple times a day when we are calving. I have never noticed the bulls being protective over the herd necessarily.

We have a large coyote population, but they do not seem to bother either the horses or the cattle. I was initially concerned about them going after barn cats, but they do not seem to do that either.

We do see the coyotes out after making hay in a field. They will seek out the small varmints and snakes after the hay is tettered and raked. They are funny to watch as there seems to be a lot of jumping and pouncing going on.

We are a mile off the interstate as the crow flies, and a siren on the interstate will set the coyotes howling. I was surprised when our neighbor’s son brought over a hunting call that mimics an injured rabbit. He played it a couple times, and that made them howl!

[Bluey]

@rockymouse

This is the type of operation I’m familiar with as well. I’m not a rancher, but our dear friends are, and I dayworked with them just this week, gathering heifers, putting five stray pairs into the right pasture, and moving a bull. Their place is more than 50,000 acres. Mamas drop their babies in craggy canyons and bulls live a segregated life in their own pasture, except for a few months when they cover the girls. The bulls I’ve seen haven’t been too altruistic or protective. Coyotes are despised and shot on sight, exactly because of the scenario told upthread, about preying on a cow downed while giving birth. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens.

We have a population of pronghorn here that has been a subject of intensive study for their precipitous decline in numbers. Some of you may not know that although pronghorn have the ability to jump, they vastly prefer to go under fences instead of over them. Net fencing is part of the pronghorns’ problem. Biologists told me that coyotes have figured this out, and have been known to run pronghorn into the corner of a net-fenced pasture, where they cannot easily escape.

A coyote snatched one of my chickens this week; perhaps we were too tardy in shutting their pen one evening. Or perhaps it snuck up in daylight, who knows. We don’t shoot at them here and the horses pay them no mind except to perhaps raise their heads to look at them briefly. We are pretty live-and-let-live types at our little place. The horses and chickens are mostly pets, and we stop what we’re doing to listen to the coyotes sing when the train goes by. I surprised one by the barn the other day. I yelled at him and he glanced over his shoulder at me as he sauntered away. I couldn’t help but admire the depth and redness of his coat.

By August, all cows bred, bulls are staying by themselves and are ready to be driven away from the cows and go find other bulls to hang out with.
Picking up bulls then is easy, they are ready to go, just as they are ready to go find cows in the spring.
Same bulls will be fierce fighting over cows in the spring, big buddies the rest of the year.
Here are some in their winter pasture, colts came over to visit:

We have whole herds of antelope, see them every day every place, mostly grazing on wheat fields, no shortage of them around here.
Most of our fences are five wire barbed wire fences, so antelope go under, deer jump over it, easily.
Antelope a few days ago by the trough and salt lick right in front of the house:

[S1969]

@Rackonteur

Since no one in clanter’s neighborhood is able to shoot the coyotes, and AC is unwilling to help, it seemed obvious to me that the coyotes were watching the schoolchildren walking to school because the children are carrying food that the coyotes can smell.

It might seem obvious to you, but it’s highly unlikely that the coyotes are considering attacking children for a PB&J.

[cutter99]

@S1969

@Rackonteur

Since no one in clanter’s neighborhood is able to shoot the coyotes, and AC is unwilling to help, it seemed obvious to me that the coyotes were watching the schoolchildren walking to school because the children are carrying food that the coyotes can smell.

It might seem obvious to you, but it’s highly unlikely that the coyotes are considering attacking children for a PB&J.

Yeah, but someone also needs to tell clanter this.