Coyotes--Where do they eat their kill?--Sad Update :(

[cloudynoir]

This is a couple years late but my beloved waffles, who was 4 years old, escaped on jan 14 of this new year. We did everything we could to find him but we do feel as if he was eaten by a coyote as there are quite a lot in our area and waffles loved being outside and would only go as far as the front and back yard but would always come back home but this time he didn't. Wherever he is, may he rest in peace. I know it hurts losing your pet to a coyote and there were so many ways in which it could have been prevented but unfortunately he died in a painful way as i'm assuming coyote deaths are painful. It feels so surreal thinking he is going to come sit on my lap or sit on the edge of my bed but I know he isn't RIP MY BABY BOY

 

[Sapphire3]

It is the middle of the night of day 11 of missing my less than a year old "KITUN" (gray and white precious friendly male cat) and I finally googled, "do coyotes eat cats" and found this site. I wish I had read it before I let my Kitun slip out the front door as he had many times before on Feb. 27th about 7P here in a suburb of Fort Worth, TX. I have lived here only 7 months backing up to a greenbelt and creek and my daughter even said one day, Mom that is a coyote in that field behind your house. I said, "In the daytime"? I couldn't believe how he glared at us the way we were glaring at him. I still didn't think anything of his presence, assumed it was a fluke as I only saw him briefly that one time. (Suburban naivety.)

I put signs out on the street poles and asked my neighbors hoping someone thought he was a friendly stray (break away blue collar perhaps broken away) and took him in but after reading these 4 pages of posts I can stop going to the front and back door over and over all night hoping he is there as he was many times before. Only once had he stayed out until 3 AM.

I have had cats all my life but this was a special cat I had raised with an eye dropper from just a few weeks as he had been separated from his feral Mother somehow and I bonded and connected with his sweet warm childlike personality, not aloof as most cats.
Whatever room I was in, he came in there. If I was in kitchen there he came. Office/computer, sat by me until I finished work at hand. When I left the house, he waited on a shelf by the front door for my return wanting to be picked up as I walked through the door. He did not sit in my lap, he crawled up under my chin and onto my shoulder needing to feel safe and as close as possible if I sat down.
Yes he slept with me. So cute he had to get right up next to my face, cute when just a kitten, lovingly heavy as he became 9 months.
He even let strangers hold him, touch his feet, usually a no no with cats, he thought he was human. I had never loved a cat so much, too much I guess.
The unknown of where he is/was has taken up most of my daily thoughts and sleepless nights but reading all these posts I am convinced he probably tried to make friends with that coyote to be shocked the world was not what he had experienced thus far. He ran out to play at 7ish, I went to front door to bring him back in at 10p and felt an immediate feeling of "doom" when he did not come running immediately. The mind is ever hopeful as I hoped he was in someone's house and I just needed to find out which one. He vanished in 3 hours as never before and all my neighbors have not seen him.
I cried tonight reading these posts, so sorry for all the hurt and pain of losing our sweet felines to such a violent useless creature.
I am not a fan of hunters, killing deer I have always thought terrible. So deer hunters, please kill coyote instead so families can enjoy the love and comfort of a domesticated family member and I can sit in my backyard at night without having to fear the idea.
God Bless my and your sweet cats and small dogs. I can start to grieve now instead of having false hope.
I'm so thankful for the time I had with

such a sweet animal, but no more please.

 

[catlover2004]

I ran across this site after googling cats killed by coyotes. I feel that this is a nice memorial for those of us with a horrible shared bond. My beautiful cat, Leo, was killed the other day by a coyote. He was an indoor / outdoor cat. He usually stayed in at night, but on the night of 4/17 he wanted to continue playing outside and so much to my regret, I let him. The next morning when he didn't show up at the back door, the search was on -- signs, Next Door posts, Pet Harbor lost cat registration, and visiting many shelters that had posted pictures of his doppelgänger. Sadly, a couple of days later, one of our neighbors found him in the backyard killed by a coyote. We feel so horrible and guilty. I knew about the coyotes! We did try to make sure that he was in at night, but a couple of times in the past he had stayed out, but first thing in the morning his sweet fuzzy face would be at the back door. I reassured myself that he was a smart cat and seeing the other outdoor cats in the neighborhood made me feel more confident. And he LOVED being outdoors. He would jump around the back yard chasing imaginary prey and sit on the fence surveying his domain. My other cat, DJ, and dog, TIny, have NO interest in being outside. He was different. But I was so so wrong and I feel terrible. RIP Leo, my sweet sweet snuggler.

One of the other replies mentioned our cats meeting in a warm field where catnip grows aplenty and coyotes are unknown. AMEN!!!!

Much love to those with this horrible shared bond. I hope sharing this post will provide comfort for someone who has suffered the same tragedy and maybe help keep another cat safe.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Tom cats or a better word go Tom catting.

Your cat may just be courting the girl cats in your neighborhood.

Don't give up on him...... yet.

 

[Isileo]

Two came into my front yard and got my cat from the mulched area around the house, just outside my office window. They were seen on the game camera coming down the driveway about 2PM.

 

[starlight849]

I live in the woods basically and its surrounded by coyotes. I have seen them take down full grown deer and move them off into the woods within an hour after rechecking. I free range 20 chickens and have never lost a chicken to a coyote yet. I know this topic is about losing cats, but I have cats that roam inside and outside as well and I have yet to lose one of them either. I don't keep a dog around.
1.) Keep a perimeter from the house to the woods with no where for them, or small game they would want to eat, to hide. Including relocating and/or killing possum, etc that breach that perimeter.
2.) I keep multiple roosters. The one daytime attack I had from two coyote was fended off by two of my three roosters while the other rooster rushed the girls to safety. The roosters were unharmed and the coyote skull is now sitting on my porch since the commotion was enough to alert me to the problem.
3.) Wolf Pee. I find this to have made the biggest difference. I put it down around the perimeter of the woods and coops three to four times a year and haven't seen a coyote breach the perimeter since I started using it. You can find it on Amazon. I buy the pee in sand mixture and sprinkle piles randomly around.

Good luck!

 

[Isileo]

We live in s clearing in the woods. Saturday in broad daylight one of the coyotes came down the middle of the driveway, up through the yard heading directly toward the door that I was standing at. Went across the front yard which has no trees in it, none, and then back across the other end of the driveway and back into the woods. I never thought to put the cat up because of the 'yotes because he mostly stays inside the fence and because I saw him square off with a small one a couple of years back. A friend of our took that skull home.

You can see in the mulch that the cat was sitting just under the bed if the truck less than 5 feet from the house and there is a mulch trail from there, across the driveway and off into the front yard on the other side. That's where my husband said he found all of the hair.

 

[itsasmallfarm]

so sorry for every ones losses of your pets, i lost one of my cats, (could be a coyote but most likely a cougar/mountain lion got her) quite a few years ago.

having that said last night there where maybe 10 or so coyotes howling at night, after reading these sad story's i have decided that it is time to act, i think am going to get a live trap for them, then dispatch the ones i catch.

again sorry for you loses to the yotes.

 

[Tuxeys Mom]

 

[Tuxeys Mom]

That's my Tuxey above, she has been missing since last Sunday, May 28. She is our first outside cat, and we have only had cats in the family for about three years when I realized that my cat allergy was gone. Our daughter's boyfriend found her as a tiny hungry kitten outside his apartment. He was a bit overwhelmed at the way she cried out and followed him from room to room but then he soon realized what a delight she is. He even shared video of her fetching lightweight pompoms as if she were a puppy. He left for the Air Force and we took her to our newly acquired rural farm. She kept my husband company while our son and I stayed behind to finish the school year. Soon she owned the place, we really felt that she would be able to take care of herself outside, she came back with such regularity. We knew that she was a huntress, I took pity on several geckos that she was tormenting and she came into the house with a mouse in her mouth once.

Last Sunday she had slept in the house all day, into the evening, while we took our dogs for a swim in the pool. She must have slipped out when we brought the dogs in, neither of us remember letting her out, but that is not unusual. When she did not come back at bedtime, well, that had happened before too. But when she was not waiting to come in and eat a can of food Monday morning, that was unusual and worrisome.

Reading above, I am struck at how our love of our cats is so tactile. Tuxey is so silky/fuzzy, I call her my little Swiffer because she comes in with all manner of vegetation caught in her fur. Her body and limbs feel so taught and tiny under that fluffy fur, I am amazed at the way she seems driven to play and hunt outside in the forest around our home, she seems so small and dainty. Yet she races up a tree trunk to about ten feet and then right back down and seems the picture of joy out there.

I really thought the presence and scent of five dogs in and around our home would repel coyotes. There is still no evidence of what happened to Tuxey and our posters are still fresh out there. It hasn't been a week yet. But we have raptors and coyotes and raccoons and it is not at all like her not to come home. I have searched all places where she could have become trapped several times.

Tomorrow I plan to let our female german shepherd sniff the blanket that Tuxey slept on last Sunday before she went out and see if she heads in any particular direction. The shepherd has not been trained to hunt, but it's worth a try.

Everybody above, I am so sorry for your losses and I am grateful for your sharing. If something seems ungrammatical or awkward above, I went back and changed many verbs to the present tense because I am not ready to use the past tense about my Tuxey.