Coyote excitement!

[justintime]

I just got a chance to see some mama cows in action protecting their babies. We have just started calving and have 5 calves now and one more very close to calving. A few minutes ago, I went to the barn to close the door and lock the cows and calves in for the night. Normally, I would have left it until later in the evening but we have gale force winds this afternoon. I shut the door and was just coming back through the barn, when I saw a coyote was curled up sleeping in one of the box stalls. He looked very comfortable and he must have realized I was there about the same time as I saw it.When the coyote saw me, it jumped up and tried to head for the door ( which I had just closed). My closest gun was sitting in the tractor so I headed to get it and was not even out of the barn when I heard a real commotion. The coyote had gone into the north part of the barn where the cows and calves were. The three Shorthorn cows took after it first, and the three Gelbvieh recips joined in quickly. They were pounding the coyote into the cement walls of the barn  and they had him down several times. I thought it was a goner, but it kept getting up and was actually jumping 8 feet in the air and hitting the ceiling trying to find a way out. Every time he came down a cow would nail it aqain. He finally got back to the barn door and a cow hit it so hard that the door went almost straight out and the coyote escaped. I ran around the barn to see where the coyote had gone and he was lieing in some straw outside. When he saw me he limped off and one back leg was flopping pretty good.( I think that was only one of several injuries he had).  This event made me appreciate how good these mother cows are at protecting thekir young, but it also made me appreciate ( again) that if it had been me they were defending their calves from, that  I would not have stood a chance.

 

[knabe]

man, i thought you were going to talk about coyote's cattle.

 

[Dozer45]

Good Mamas!  <party>

 

[coachmac]

Great Read! Thank you for sharing!!! 

We have a new mama that tried that with my mastiff.  Roughed him up pretty good until I grabbed him and took off. Didnt even think about the amount of muscles I pulled in my back until I set him down and about fell right beside him.  He is an ole boy and couldnt have gotten away with his bad hip. 

 

[Freerider]

Good story!

I saw 1st hand also how cows can protect their calves this summer. I saw 2 coyotes chase  a newborn and then 3 cows came running with heads down on a mission, the coyotes didn't want any part of that and took off running.

 

[justintime]

Found a dead coyote beside a bale stack this morning. I suspect it is the one from last night's barn episode. Now if I could just figure out how to get rid of a couple hundred more of these creatures. They are getting far too brave. That is one of the reasons I carry a gun in the tractor as I oftentimes see coyotes walking through the cow herd or through the pens where the cattle are. I have heard that a dish of antifreeze beside a dead animal with kill them. I have tried this but have not found any dead coyotes to prove that it works but the antifreeze is oftentimes gone.

 

[ALTSIMMY 79]

Very interesting story ! I've been hunting coyotes pretty hard for many years now and the coyote is the type of animal that when they start to notice there numbers are declining they breed more . So I'm afraid to say it , but the coyote explosion is here to stay . They are one of the smartest , hardiest predators we have ! Try having a good trapper come in , in the fall possibly . Just have to make it very clear not to set where your cattle can get into !

 

[Hilltop]

That Coyote is lucky that your wife's dogs were not out there! ;D

 

[Shady Lane]

Definitely!

  That 'yote might have choked to death on one of them!

What a way to go!


(lol)

 

[SeannyT]

This story just reminded me of something I saw on the internet last fall. Take a look!
http://funnypagenet.com/bear-vs-cows/

 

[firesweepranch]

This story just reminded me of something I saw on the internet last fall. Take a look!
http://funnypagenet.com/bear-vs-cows/

That's funny! Those were Simmental cows, and those photos were recently in our Simmental magazine (I think it was The Register, but might have been SimTalk). Great little article about the mothering ability of our cows!!!
AFA coyotes, we have lots out here also. I have someone come out and hunt them for me. Our hay bales are about 75 feet from the house, and the other morning I got up and looked out at the pastures and movement caught my eye; a coyote was running across the top of the round bales playing! They have no fear of domesticated dogs out here, and at night you can hear them yipping close to the house. Nasty creatures... and they seem to be getting worse lately! Less fearful...

 

[Okotoks]

At the south end of our place we have a lot of bush and trees and there are some coyotes that live in that section and the neighbors. They have actually dragged one of the neighbors red angus calves through the fence right after she calved. We have been pretty lucky with them not bothering our cows but a few years ago they killed one of our old shelties, ripped her throat open.
One year Diamond Della Dottie 43D(the dam of Diamond Helena Dottie 12H) broke out of our calving field and went out to the bush to calve. It was winter with quite a lot of snow. When I found her she was standing over her calf which was dead and there were coyote tracks all round her. You could see where the calf had been up and must have got trampled when she was trying to keep the coyotes away.43D was born in the spring and her dam calved in the same bush. We knew she had calved but it was two days before she actually brought the calf out into the open.

 

[firesweepranch]

Just In Time, Antifreeze will kill coyotes, or anything else (including cattle). It shuts down the kidneys and liver. It takes a few days for them to die after consumption, so you would not see any evidence. I know this because when I taught high school ag, we had a school farm with some expensive breeding ewes. We were hit by a pack of wild dogs several nights in a row, and often they left a ewe with guts dragging but still alive! It was  a game for them, and I just got mad and decided to do something (school property so I could not use a gun). I bated raw meatballs injected with antifreeze, and three days later we had no more attacks! It took care of the problem, and my students stopped being horrified each morning they would come down to feed their projects to find dead sheep, or sheep that should have been dead!

 

[r.n.reed]

A couple months ago the city of Chicago spent a small town fire departments annual budget rescuing a coyote off the ice on Lake Michigan.It was headline news and the recuers who went out in the boat to save it were great heros,in fact if I remember right at least one guy had to jump in.Never heard anything about the well being of people who were assaulted or maybe even murdered that day!A sad comentary.

 

[ALTSIMMY 79]

In reply to reeds post , I would say that is pretty ridiculous and wasteful of them . If it was someones pet dog or even a deer , maybe . Goes to show some city people really don't have much up stairs !

 

[jallen]

The key to slowying down the breeding is to leave the alfa male which i know is hard to spot but as long as he is there there younger males will not go ape and breed everything. So aim for the females and It should help. Great story

 

[brent schnettgoecke]

This past weekend our county had  a  big coyote weigh in and between our county and i believe 2 other neightboring countys there was a grand total of 111 coyotes killed

 

[lfarms]

    NICE WORK

 

[lowann]

This past weekend our county had  a  big coyote weigh in and between our county and i believe 2 other neightboring countys there was a grand total of 111 coyotes killed

<beer>

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

Last year I took 42 coyotes out of the pasture that lays behind my house. All of them came out of a 1/2 mile wide by 1 mile long pasture. Just started working on them this year, only 7 so far but the snow has been to deep for the last week for much success. RW