We see signs of coyote activity (sometimes coyotes themselves) within a 150 feet of pens during daylight. They are usually targeting voles which are very abundant in our pasture. On other side of pens our free ranging flock is at least at times in visual range of coyotes but coyotes have not taken any yet during dalylight. They only take free rangers at night that roost too low to ground around pens, most of mine are not vulnerable when on roost as they take advantage of contructed roost. Then as with your loss when it occurs, multiple birds taken at once, minimal feathers, maybe a gut-pile or two and balance taken elsewhere for immediate consumption or caching. I think what they do is kill multiple birds then do their best to carry whole lot off in a single trip. In my case, more than one coyote involved at same time. They need not have pups to take multiple birds at once. When they take my birds, coyotes very good at dispatching rapidly so minimal alarm calls given by birds being attacked. My observations of take are very limited but they may have smarts to cache easy catch now so food in good supply when female stops hunting to stay with pups in den and pop has hard time making kills.
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