Feeling Discouraged

[LuckyFarrell]

OK... so my wife and I just bought our first home. We have been planning to start a small backyard flock, but a recent encounter with a coyote has me worried. I live in a fairly residential neighborhood, more houses than wilderness. But last night when entering my neighborhood I stumbled upon a bold coyote who haphazardly trotted in the middle of the road, which made me feel he is very comfortable with this area.

Frankly, I am more worried about my 8 pound mutt then my future flock. I fear getting chickens will increase the risk of my dog (which our vet called a coyotes perfect meal) getting eaten.

I have been really excited about getting chickens I all ready bought a dog house on craigslist to convert into a coop, somebody just tell me everything will be ok.

 

[Jena]

One good thing is you know your enemy.

Now you can do your best to make your coup and run safe from coyotes.

Good luck to you and your dog.

I am sure other peole would be worried about the coyote in the area too, maybe he could be trapped and moved to another area.

Sorry can't be more help, i don;t know how things are over there. but others here will give you more assurance.

 

[unionwirewoman]

Coyotes tend to be more driven at night than in the daytime (at least on my 36 acres ) So as long as you build a good predator proof house/run , and keep your dog inside or in a kennel , you'll be fine . You'll here those sob's before they tear anything up anyway . I keep meaning to get glasses ( I wear contacts ) so I can jump up and grab my gun....I'm too blind , Hubby's too slow , so I guess I should break down and spend the money !

 

[ozark hen]

Yes, the coyotes will attack during the daytime. I have seen them many, many times in the daytime. We have small Shih-Tzu here, four of them in the house! One year the fields were very high and came right up to the yard on all sides. I came home from work and my one dog was gone. We live in the middle of 82 acres and none of our dogs have ever once gone down the 1/3 mile driveway through the woods. Neighbors heard coyotes running that night and Oreo went out to wait for me to come home from work @ 3 a.m. dh forgot to close the doggy door up that night. No person could ever catch Oreo. He wouldn't even go to family members so I know it was a coyote. I cried for days. he was always barking at the sound of coyotes and acted like he wanted to take them on. He was fourteen pounds...a chubby little guy. I will not let my dogs out into the yard now at night unless I am with them and the shotgun stays by the door. They have run across our yard many a times and have no fear of humans. Fence that yard to keep your dog safe. Just my story.

 

[English Chick]

Don't be discouraged, I am sure there has to be a way to keep your dog and eventual flock safe, as Jena said you know who the enemy is so you can take every precaution to mintain safety.

Good luck to you...

 

[Stray]

Ok-- My suggestions are probably ones you might not WANT to take but they are conciderable. 1.) is to just get rid of it, I mean you don't have to kill it (frankly I am aginst that but not above it.), but just use something to chase it from you neighborhood, or call animal control, unless you absolutly have to. You could also put up a fence and strengthen it with mesh wire about a foot or so under it. doesn't save your neighbors greif but your dog should be fine. and if you don't want to do any of that then I'm not quiet sure what you should do. Over the summer while I was still living in Arkansas, I lost most my flock to a pair of coyotes that were just helping themselves to my birds, one day I'm out in the backyard just lazing about and I hear my hen going nuts. Knowing what was going on I got my brother 22 from inside the door and by the time I got back out I was in time to see the male trotting off with on of my pullets, I hollered and strangely all it did was turn and stare at my like I was some sort of idiot, that's when I took my shot, hitting in the spine, fatally wounding, but not immediatly killing it. It to me about ten minutes to get over the barbed wire fence and get to it to put it out of it's misery, I burried both the canine and the bird. I called Animal control on the female, I couldn't make myself kill her, I knew she had pups, I could hear them in the woods almost every night. Anyways thats probably what you should do. If you don't want to do that then you probably should keep you dog inside unless nessasary, and forget about the chickens.

 

[Mahonri]

Coyotes can jump 6 foot fences like they are not there. Keep that in mind.

 

[pdsavage]

To help protect my chickens I bought 2 livestock guardian dog a brother and sister and even at 4 months old they are huge and try and protect the property.Mine are 3/4 GREAT PYRENEES-1/4 Anatolian.
They have em forsale alot at the local small animal sale,I went and got mine from a BYC person.
They are big dogs and are not like other dogs very hard to obedence train and they are very independent....Read up on em here is a start
http://www.lgd.org/
http://www.sonic.net/~cdlcruz/GPCC/library/breed4u.htm

 

[KattyKillFish]

dont be discouraged! it's nothing a good fence and some blinking red christmas lights won't fix. i live in a rural community and there are alot of woods. i see a fox or two every day, and fresh tracks in my yard each morning. never lost a single hen to a fox. we've lost many hens to dogs though.

i also recommend getting a larger breed of sheepdog to help protect your flock.

 

[Black Feather]

I think the best course of action is to build housing that will protect you chickens against coyotes, and other potential predators as well. It's the most sure fire way to give yourself peace of mind.

On the topic of the coyote itself, I would think twice about getting rid of it. When you kill a predator you open up that animals territory to other predators that will come in and take it's place. It's a never ending cycle where you git rid of tone animal only to have another take it's place.

We're more at fault that the wildlife around us as we have taken up sooo much of the natural habitat. Learning to 'get along' will be more beneficial to us in the long run. Mind you, it will take effort on our parts and it won't always be convenient.

Now, on the flip side, if a predator truly becomes a problem, in other words it's trying it's darnedest to dig under and tear up your coop, or is waiting in your backyard for you to let you dog out for a bathroom break, then finding said predator a new home far away from people might be the way to go. Hopefully any predator that takes it's place won't be so brazen.

It's a tricky balance and I wish you the best of luck no matter what method you choose to use.

Urban Coyote