Coyote Scare

Thank goodness I wasn't doing the laundry like I should have but instead was surfing DG. I looked out my office window and a large coyote( at least 60 pounds) was heading towards my back pasture. My chickens and duck were happily munching around this pasture. I don't think my feet hit one stair when I raced downstairs.
Everyone is safe and sound. Whew!
Our 22 is locked up and the bullets are locked up so by the time you get everything together I figured he'd be having his mid-afternoon snack.
Ok, feel better now....We are heading out to TSC in a few but I just had to decompress.

Sue(w/ racing heartbeat)

He knows they are there now and unfortunately will be back! Better keep that 22 loaded, even if you don't hit them, shooting at them helps keep them scared.

i dont mess with stinging them!! the 9mm is loaded, and the 06 is ready too..there are too many coyotes here and i wont let them get my girls..

There is a dog that has come to visit for several nights.. It's gonna be hot pink with paint ball marks.. LOL Maby then the neighbor will believe me!

edited to add..

I didn't mean to NOT acknowledge how frustrated and what a rush it is when you see something like that! I heard that bark at 4am for two mornings.. I wasn't very nice this morning! I hope you get it soon..

This message was edited Feb 10, 2009 4:36 PM

We had a neighbor who would not keep their white poodle mix home. Everytime I talked to her about it harrassing my chickens, she denied it could possibly be hers. Next time I sent it home tie dyed with rit and a squirt gun. Every day we used a diffrent color. By the time he was pink yellow and green, she started locking him up. Color lasted for months and months and months.

Jyl- that sounds like one of your finer works of art!!lol.

Jyl I love that! Our dog officer is one that is always on the dog's side. That would be the clincher! Hard to say it's not your dog when it's neon green!lol
I'll have to ask my son if he still has his paintball gun. Since I have Owen here during the day I don't want the 22 loaded and ready to go during the week. Weekends are another matter..!
We hear the coyotes quite abit during the night which can make the hair stand up when they are close but during the day when my girls are out they are not welcome.

We had a horrible problem with coyotes last summer. The were running betwen the houses. I couldn't sleep at all. Then just when I had the guys convinced to sit up at night and shoot some. Parvo came through the neighborhood. A few idiots who never vacinated their dogs lost them, but we haven't heard a coyote in months. I'm sure a new pack will move in, but it will take them a while to build up to thoes numbers again.

They are horrible, horrible animals and the ONLY one that I refuse to rehabilitate. You can't really, they are like a teenage movie star, they just don't want to change and will chew your arm off if you try to help them.

We have them in our area and i heard them kill another dog once it was one of the most frightening things i have ever heard :(

That's scary. I was hoping that they would avoid the back pasture when my dogs are out there.

Makes you wonder if a guard mule isn't a better answer than a dog. Y'all are scaring me, you know -- this farm I'm hoping to buy is in rural Texas. I'll get either a guard mule or an alpaca.

I'd say a combination would be your best bet...they take down the occasional calf around here. We'll hear a ruckus out in the woods at the neighbor's and not be able to do anything....hate it...

Would a mule and an alpaca get along? I haven't read much about the alpacas, but I do like what I read about the mules and donkeys.

Didn't mean to scare anyone i've lived with these for 20 years never actually had one come in the yard.
My neighbors have lost a cat or two and one had a dog go missing but they all wandered into the coyotes territory.

Yea Grow i've heard them for years kind of makes your hair on your neck standup when they get to catter wailing.

A lone coyote is usually one that has been removed from the pack and tend to be hungrier as it is harder to get food without the pack. They are the ones that will usually target easy prey around houses. Though we did have a pack come in an kill a lame deer within 10 feet of the neighbors house. I heard it happen and it shook up the whole neighborhood. There were too tiny kids living in that house. It took a while, but that pack was eliminated.

I have had trouble in the past with Coyotes coming in the winter when the food supply is not plentyful out in the desert. Sorry to say if they know where they can eat, they tend to come back. I have my 45 and my 22 loaded with trigger locks for easy access. They are hanging on the wall and Billy could care less about them, but they are there for quick access.

Donks/alpacas sounds a bit loaded to me...I was thinking more donk-n-dog...or alpaca/dog

Here is what the dog did to my rabbit hutch and ate two Roos.. It chewed the trim board completely off.. then bent the wire so far the door came open! I was livid..

The neighbor keep saying it's coyote.. but no way.. I don't believe it for a minute.. That took time..

I'm really liking Jyl's tie-dye idea. More and more...that's disgusting.

I wish I could catch this one.. or get close enough to shoot it with the paint ball gun.. but it's a night time predator.. and only like once a month..
One time I had a motion sensor out there.. went of several nights.. but by the time I got out there.. it was gone.. the red light comes on when it detects motion.. that must have scared him away before I could get out the door.. it was on a chair.. so it had to be that dog.. too tall for a cat to set it off..
I have to work.. a couple of sleepless nights and I'm kinda crabby.. LOL
I'll get him.. one of these days!

You need a llama, from what I have read the alpaca would need protection. Llamas are used to protect alpaca herds.

Or simply rig the cages with exploding paintballs...(yeah, well, simply...ummm) Bite cage: explode into neon colors.

I'm thinking about putting up 3 or 4 strands of barbed wire at the top of the fence. Since the cattle fence is up against the stone wall the foxes and coyotes climb up the wall and jump over the fence-easier in than out.

We are setting up the next fields differently. The fence is going to be placed about 8-10 feet off the wall w/ barbed wire angled out toward the wall. Hoping this is a better deterrent. We ordered fencing from TSC this past week. It won't be going up until later this year but the pricing was pretty good right now. I think off-season is the best time to pick things up.

I second Wren - alpacas would be coyote snacks. Llamas or donkeys or livestock guardian dogs would be better.

You can also try the fake preditor thing. If it is a wild animal, they don't like to go where they think annother preditor already is. You just need two red or yellow lights to look like eyes. I have a fake owl with the eyes drilled out and a light up it's butt to sit on the fence and a black box with two small holes like eyes and a light inside on the ground. As long as you move these around every few weeks, they seem to work pretty well. I use blinking lights so it looks like it's blinking.

Cool! It doesn't scare the hens?

They are usually in the coop sleeping when the timer turns them on, but I had them out with my turkeys and silkies and it didn't seem to bother them.

We've been hearing a good sized pack of coyotes at night but in the past week I have seen individual coyotes in the daytime twice. I just took this picture today at 2:15 pm, coyote left soon as it saw me on the deck. saanansandy, I was sitting surfing DG and saw it out the window just like you did.
Has anybody ever used a cap gun (loud noise maker) to keep them from coming around? I just can't use anything lethal but sure understand it when others do. I have a kitty that goes outside in the garden with me so am worried for her. She really hasn't wanted to go outside much lately, smart kitty, she must know they are out there.

That's a very handsome coyote there!
Hopefully the barbed wire will work as planned. Have you looked into installing coyote rollers along the fence top?

Here are some links to the commercial variety. You may be able to make something similar yourself:
http://www.wildlifedamagecontrol.net/pdf/coyoterollerinfo.pdf

http://www.coyoteroller.com/home

I have read that coyotes are able to quickly adapt litter size depending on their environment. They will have larger litters in seasons when overall coyote numbers are down, and smaller litters when prey/food is less plentiful. Amazing! We have terrible problems with them up here in Maine - huge coyotes - not uncommon for the adult males to reach 50+ pounds. There is a huge sport that has evolved over the last 10 years, with houndsmen taking large numbers of them mostly during the winter. Unfortunately, the more they kill, the more the yodel dogs bounce back.

maniac, I've read a few articles that show the "eastern coyote" is really a coyote-wolf hybrid. That is why they are as large as they are. Apparently the genetic testing supports this. I can't find the original articles, but here is a blog entry that describes this:

http://wolfsaga.blogspot.com/2006/05/is-eastern-coyote-really-wolf-hybrid.html

http://www.mjlst.umn.edu/uploads/K6/d6/K6d6BJ5ZDGxf-C6h4a2t7g/adkins_g_4_24.pdf

Perhaps the coy-wolves can be redirected back to deer, rodents and other traditional food sources. We've had a problem with folks who relocate to rural or other areas that border the national/state forests and open spaces and then leave food outside, which attracts the local wildlife. These then become used to humans and are taken out as "problem" animals because of that. The state has been promoting a "keep them wild" campaign with some stiff penalties for those that don't comply.

I realize the chickens and livestock are the draw, but this where guardian animals and good fencing comes in if your natural predators have gotten comfortable around humans.

Yep, we've heard of some folks around here purposely leaving dog food out for the coyotes. Very dangerous for pets and livestock. I used to see a lot of wild rabbits and now it is rare to see one. I imagine the coyotes have diminished their numbers and will be looking at neighborhood pets now.

We ask people to make a loud noise, and do whatever it takes to scare them away from their yards to help keep them wary of humans but sadly many are too fascinated with seeing them up close and don't think about the consequences.....until they find the remains of their pet and they get up in arms. It's a preventable situation.

Some of the areas that have anihilated their coyotes now have a rodent problem!
Hopefully we can find a balance point.

Hey, can you put a burro in with the chickens to keep the preditors away, or will they stop the chickens?

good question, when we had the ponies here they would go straight for the chicken pen for the feed, and they never hurt a chicken but the chicken were like what in the heck is that giant thing. The chickens steered clean of them.

Donkeys/mules or llamas, from what I'm finding out.

I have heard of farmers who, after having butchered an animal, would take the offal out to the furthest, backest portion of their property and leave it for the wild things. Gave them a food source AWAY from where the people are. Theory was that the predator population was necessary, just needed to be kept away from people and livestock. The main one doing this had a guard llama and he said NO problems with wildlife...

does anyone keep a burro with their chickens?? I was thinking of getting a couple to guard the chickens,. I have the hawk problem at bay for now with the aviary nets, but am worried about ferrell cats and coyotes etc. coming around while I am at work. I need a guard burro.

Don't know whether they'd do-fer hawks or not...

grow, I know they won't work on hawks..well maybe, hawks don't like anything bigger than them around. I am mainly concerned with ferrell cats and coyotes. We have a huge pack of them I hear at night and my dogs run around in the morning sniffing in the yard where they have been.