Coyote trapping

[007Sean]

I believe there is an indian legend that fortells that the only critters to survive the end of times will be the coyote and the crow.
I do believe this could be correct.

cockroaches!

 

[duluthralphie]

(Okay so I lied) I find it interesting some of you have coyote season. We have so many up here they are unprotected. There has even been talk of re-establishing a bounty on them. (I am for that).

Our coyotes only pack up during the winter months when the snow is deep. Of course, our wolves keep our coyotes a tad timid. Urine will not deter a coyote around here. I am not sure it would even deter a wolf (official name is brush wolf, we call them timber wolves).

I wish they were as easy to keep away as birds of prey by hanging a few CD's from a line to flip around in the wind.

Do not exclude fox from the possible furbearing critters causing harm, they are sneaky little buggers and can be in and out in no time. They do not climb but will dig like a badger. (another nasty critter)... I had a fox tunnel under my pens a few years back, she started 4-5 ft back and dug under my ground fence into my brooding pen and took out 24 birds in one night. She left hair on the wire is the only reason I knew it to be a fox....I never caught her, she never came back.

 

[7acres]

Coyotes here have been known to double team my dogs in order to get my chickens.
One gets the attenation of the dogs and they give chase in one direction. Then while that is happening the other coyote dashes in from the opposite direction and grabbs a chicken.
Also they have been known to prey on dogs. one coyote luring your dog a distance from your house. Then into an area where the rest of the coyote pack ambushes and tears the dog appart.
This has happened to several people in this area.

Watched them try the same exact thing with my dog.

 

[OhZark Biddies]

.... Normally the coyotes wouldn't come around the house or too close to the barn but this was in 'their's territory as far as they were concerned...what got me is they kept after her eventhough they saw me! She wasn't a small Weimer either, stood 30" at her shoulders.

Yep that’s how the trolling dogs work too, the coyotes often just keep chasing even after one of them is taken out of the chase.

We once had a great big block headed male black lab and a smaller mutt .. he was 1/2 blue healer, 1/4 beagle, 1/4 walker ... probably just something about that mix, but he could get into mischief taking a nap, lol... it was always something with him...

...anyway one day while out walking the mutt found a coyote and came running back, the lab always just stayed right there close when walking, but when the mutt came racing back the lab took off and hit the coyote broadside.... the coyote which was much smaller than the lab, came out of the roll on top and went to work...

...the whole thing was over in seconds but the lab needed stitches, the mutt was ready for more mischief, and that coyote just trotted off like it was another day in " the hood", lol

 

[Rosdez31]

Just a reminder for everyone : “This forum is designed as an aid to those who are having predator problems. It is not a debate forum on ethics”


See this “ground rules” post for more: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/predators-and-pests-forum-please-read-here-first.5808/

I hope my comment did not come across as an ethical attack so much as sage advice from an old farmer. My thought is if you have a predator problem, what can you change. Often killing them is not a long term solution.

 

[Rosdez31]

Does anyone have any experience dealing with coyotes in suburban areas? Something attacked my ducks Saturday night. I awoke to loud, frantic quacking and went outside to find one duck seriously maimed (I thought was dying) and another missing. Please don’t scold me, but I forgot to put them to bed the night before.

We’ve been keeping our injured duck inside while she heals, and we moved their coop closer to the house for our drake who escaped the previous attack. Last night we could not get him into the coop. I don’t know if he was upset about his missing girls or the new coop location, but this morning he was gone too. I put out food for him and it was still untouched when I came home from work . He is gone without a trace, which has never happened before.

Something had stolen eggs out of the coop at night in the past and eaten them in the yard, but I had assumed it was raccoons. Would a fox be able to take out one duck and almost kill another in the same night? Is it more likely a pack hunter like coyotes? I’m really upset and want to trap and “relocate” the offending predator(s). What has worked for others with fox and/or coyote problems?

I was letting my ducks stay out at night because it was such a fight to get them in the coop. Then an owl made off with 2. I compromised with the ducks by locking them in the yard at night which is 8x8 covered in hardware cloth. They still feel like they are staying out but they are safely in a cube of hardware cloth. I don't know if that's an option for you. Also after the owl attack I kept them in the yard exclusively for about a week so the owl wasn't looking.

 

[Rosdez31]

I believe there is an indian legend that fortells that the only critters to survive the end of times will be the coyote and the crow.
I do believe this could be correct.

Inner Salish tales tend to start with, then there was coyote...

 

[OhZark Biddies]

I hope my comment did not come across as an ethical attack so much as sage advice from an old farmer. My thought is if you have a predator problem, what can you change. Often killing them is not a long term solution.

Nope, it didn't at all....my reminder was more in response to the "dispatch" method debate.

But I'm going to ramble on generally in your direction now... so don't take that as really meant for you either ...

I'm pretty open minded about other people thinking differently than me, and adopting other solutions than what I choose and I know this stuff is never always black or white... Your approach isn't so different than my own, other than I do trap in a preventative manner around my coop... at least for raccoons... we have coyotes and foxes, but I don't expect them to be a real problem for my chickens... but if it happens I'll deal with it.

I've trapped different properties here and there, and often the goal is to reduce the nest robbing critters (skunks, possums, coons) to help populations of ground nesting birds such as quail and turkey... sometimes the goal is to remove coyotes to help fawns survive in order to help the deer herd..... sometimes it's both, sometimes it's something else....

It's always just management of a wildlife population or dealing with a specific problem... it's never about true eradication as many seem to assume.... So I naturally carry this idea of managing populations over to defending a poultry flock.

Now is this management effort long term? It just depends on the effort you put into it each year as far as how long it will be helpful... but I assure you if I remove a lot of raccoons in the fall, the number of hungry mommas with hungry kits I have in the early summer and the number of teenage raccoons I have in late summer is going to be much smaller.

As an example: I had a friend with 100 acres remove something like 75 raccoons and possums in a matter of 2 weeks the first year that farm was trapped... can we expect that helped the quail, turkey and even cottontail populations on that farm?... of course it did. Did it wipe out the raccoons and possums long term?... of course not. And so it's the same thing for anyone around their coop... reduced numbers simply means reduced opportunities for problems... but you are never going to remove them all or prevent more from moving in.

But I guess it's important to remember too, that if someone lives in town, they might actually have more raccoons and red foxes... and in many places these days maybe more coyotes... than I have living in the sticks.... and they will have a much smaller area that they can control to remove critters... so they have the problem of defending their coop from a large surrounding population of chicken eaters... it's a different ball game than what many other folks face.

I know what I'd do in that situation, but it's hard to know what to tell others sometimes... and some of the reasons it's hard to do so, is because of some general lack of understanding, as well as a lack of details, and a lack of knowing what details to provide.... and well let's just say it out loud... there is often a lot of misinformation on these threads that comes from folks with knowledge but no experience:

• Knowledge ( I read this, so I know it)
• Experience ( I read this, so I know it... AND ...I did it, so I now also know what I don't know).

I don't comment on threads about how to treat chicken health issues, because I've never done it, and I'm unlikely to ever do most any of it... but I do read them some times, so I have knowledge of certain issues of that type... but I think it would be silly for me to tell someone else how to apply this or that medicine when I've never done it.

Likewise on these predator problem discussions, I see a lot of misinformation handed around, based on assumptions and guesses, and regurgitated knowledge, and a few things tend to happen:

• bickering
• confusion
• nonsensical suggestions that are obviously detached from experience

And there's one thing that often never happens... the OP getting help with the problem.

Which brings me back around (finally) to the point about the ethics of how to dispatch the critter... it seems a bit premature to get into that before the critter is caught, or the species is identified ... but that's pretty typical of how these threads tend to go.

Certainly, I've contributed to the noise from time to time too, and I'm not at all against a nice discussion on coyotes or coyote behavior, etc.... but maybe that can come a little later?

I guess I would just ask everyone to focus more on helping the OP of these discussions learn what details to provide in order to be able to offer targeted suggestions.... and less on guessing and providing broad strokes of general information about this critter or that critter, or this approach or that approach to dealing with critters... at least until we've helped determine some basic information, that get's the OP closer to some help in dealing with the problem that they've created the post for.

 

[Austin81]

Does anyone have any experience dealing with coyotes in suburban areas? Something attacked my ducks Saturday night. I awoke to loud, frantic quacking and went outside to find one duck seriously maimed (I thought was dying) and another missing. Please don’t scold me, but I forgot to put them to bed the night before.

We’ve been keeping our injured duck inside while she heals, and we moved their coop closer to the house for our drake who escaped the previous attack. Last night we could not get him into the coop. I don’t know if he was upset about his missing girls or the new coop location, but this morning he was gone too. I put out food for him and it was still untouched when I came home from work . He is gone without a trace, which has never happened before.

Something had stolen eggs out of the coop at night in the past and eaten them in the yard, but I had assumed it was raccoons. Would a fox be able to take out one duck and almost kill another in the same night? Is it more likely a pack hunter like coyotes? I’m really upset and want to trap and “relocate” the offending predator(s). What has worked for others with fox and/or coyote problems?

I would get a trail cam set it up for a few nights. Then check the pics maybe then you can at least see what your up against.

 

[7acres]

We once had a great big block headed male black lab and a smaller mutt .. he was 1/2 blue healer, 1/4 beagle, 1/4 walker ... probably just something about that mix, but he could get into mischief taking a nap, lol... it was always something with him...

...anyway one day while out walking the mutt found a coyote and came running back, the lab always just stayed right there close when walking, but when the mutt came racing back the lab took off and hit the coyote broadside.... the coyote which was much smaller than the lab, came out of the roll on top and went to work...

...the whole thing was over in seconds but the lab needed stitches, the mutt was ready for more mischief, and that coyote just trotted off like it was another day in " the hood", lol

This sounds like a story that I would have read in a book of early American stories or some one would have told sitting around a campfire on a coon hunt waiting for dogs to strike a scent. Thanks for sharing.