Coyote & sheep

M

Mashtare

New member
A sheep farmer had 18 sheep killed 9 at one time, many injured some full grown and alot of lambs missing.His prime suspect coyotes.My question is does it sound typical of coyotes There's a large population of red fox and the fact that so many sheep killed and injured at one time. Plus the the killing of the large sheep.
 
It depends on the type of kill. Coyotes and dogs kill differently. It seems to early for that type of damage from coyotes. But in Sept. when the pups start killing you get those kinds of deals.
 
Just joined the list. The 18 sheep mentioned by Mashtare were mine. Nine were killed at one time; the rest died within 48 hours or had to be euthanized. Every one that was attacked had similar wounds: bite marks on the neck, many of the bites underneath the neck toward the head. All of the dead sheep had been ripped open at the ribs and all had some degree of gut removal. Udders on most were torn. We found no evidence of torn/pulled wool on any animals, dead or wounded. Most of the dead animals were in one area, an remote part of the pasture near a creek and next to a large wooded area.

Some of the sheep that were attacked were 40+ pound lambs. None of those were found dead—only larger ewes were killed. Lambs’ neck wounds were similar, and a few had tears on the hindquarters and one had rake marks across its back. No small lambs were found wounded; however, some lambs were missing earlier in the season shortly after they were born.

This farm has always had a large population of red fox. However, it the past year, we have noticed that the population is concentrated on the outskirts of the farm. We used to see fox several times a day and now have not seen any this year. Also notable is a sharp decrease in ‘outside’ cat population on both this and neighboring farms.

We are not ruling out anything at this point, but have seen coyotes on this farm and around the area.
 
Without seeing the kills themselves it is hard to say for sure, but it really doesn't sound like a coyote problem. The udder deal is usually a giveaway for a bear, but I don't know if you even have bears there. The swipes down the back pretty well eliminate canines. That leaves you with cats or bears and the udders being torn open leans it towards a bear. Mind you that this is all a long distance "guess".
 
tjschol,
I am no expert on this sort of thing, but the fact that the sheep were killed and not eaten, makes me think the culprit may be a pack of free roaming domestic dogs. I would do some calling in that area, and would probably shoot any strange dog or any coyote that comes in. If legal, I would set traps and snares for the killers also. Traps and snares are tricky business when setting around sheep though.
 
As Cal stated it sounds like bear. Killing a ewe to feast on the high calorie milk and seeing what might be inside. Kinda like a grizzly fishin' for trout only to eat the eggs.

Its either that or definately something not organized in killing (ie, wild dogs). Coyotes are organized in killing, and have been since they were wee little coyotes.

Let us know what you kill. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Try this site. They have pictures of predation on sheep, deer, and calves from different predators. You may be able to do a little forensic investigation on your own. It sounds like dogs to me. The same thing happened to my Dad's sheep - after I eliminated our neighbor's dogs (in the act) plus one of mine, everything stopped. Coyotes usually eat what they kill, dogs don't.

http://texnat.tamu.edu/ranchref/predator/pred.htm
 
They tell me a yote grabs them by the neck and a dog grabs them in the rear. Sounds like there were several different places of injuries. I do know that the yotes will kill 5-15 sometimes at one time and just eat one or two and come back a night or two later and do the same thing, again. I would have thought if it was a coyote the ewes would have the neck wounds and the lambs would be for the most part dead. Or the ewes would be too big and the lambs would take the brunt of the damage.T.20
 
Quote, "I do know that the yotes will kill 5-15 sometimes at one time and just eat one or two and come back a night or two later and do the same thing, again."
Multiple coyote kills are not not all that common. They do not decend on the flock like a pack of wolves or a hunting pride of lions. A denning pair are usually the agressors. If it's a lamb they'll normally carry it off. Otherwise, they'll eat their fill right where it dies. They'll gorge themselves to the point of puking. Then they return to the den and regurgitate half their stomach contents for the pups to feed on.
 
Thanks for responding to our coyote situation. I do have to clarify some information based on the postings.

Cal: Thanks for the long distance “guess”. People have bears in the area on occasion, but the kills were not characteristic of bear – no scat and the area was clean around the kills. Bears, we are told, are very messy. Only the necks showed bite marks, and the chest under the front leg was opened with the guts out. Only one of the heavy lambs had the swipe marks on the back. None of the other kills or wounded had swipes. There are cats around here, but the game commission says we don’t have any…

Rich: Thank you too. None of the kills or wounded had pulled wool or were hamstrung. We are not ruling out dogs, but none of the animals showed characteristics of dogs.

Tommy: We have seen coyote in the area and did get one a few weeks ago. Our neighbors have seen them, we have seen them and we know with out a doubt they are in the area. Almost all of the feral cats in the area are gone and we have not seen any red fox all year. Since we are out in the fields all the time, we are used to seeing fox all the time – except for this year. Not one.

Teasipper: Thanks for the site. Good information here.

Tactical .20: All the kills/wounded had neck injuries – with out exception. Some of the wounded had bites under the front leg (breast area) and some had bites on the rear upper leg toward the anus. Some of the bags on the wounded females were ripped also. All the kills had been torn open at the breast and some at the rear with multiple neck wounds.

NASA: What you say about multiple kills we have also heard. That is the one condition that doesn’t seem to fit coyote – but no other predator has the rest of the characteristics that we found – consistently.

We have had a number of smaller lambs disappear from our paddock at various times (we rotationally graze our flock. Our sheep are outside all year). Something else we noted with the attack was that no lambs were found dead – only full-grown ewes (about 150 lbs.) were killed. Many of the wounded were our larger lambs (40 to 50 lbs) and none that size were found dead.

If anyone has any additional thoughts, please let us know.

Thanks to all.
 
There is an animal that meets all the characteristics of the kill scene. Wolves. Are there any in PA? (No puma, either, right?) Maybe coywolf hybrids that we've been hearing about?

Here's a typical wolf kill report:
NUMBER OF DEAD SHEEP: 20
12 rams - little or no use by wolves
6 ewes - 40 to 90% consumed by wolves
2 ewes - No estimate of consumption. Checked too late- damaged by ravens.

That kind of sounds like your scenario, doesn't it?
 
We used to have sheep on our ranch (since turned to cattle) and had some similar kills from bear and cougar. One year we had 44 lambs and ewes killed in two nights with minimal feeding activity, about a quarter of the dead sheep had been drug down from behind and had visible claw marks, but not the larger ewes, they had only neck bites. We set snares and leg traps etc. a few days later we found a piece of the lower jaw of a cougar where a snare had cut it off behind the canines. After that the killing stopped. interestingly 2 years later our neighbor killed a female cougar 4 miles from our house missing the same piece of jaw. Tough critters. I have seen instances of both bear and cougar "sport killing" I however have never seen coyotes cause the same mass destruction, however I am sure they are capable of it. I just haven't seen it in my few years.
 
Just a guess, but the fact that you were seeing fox frequently and now very infrequently makes me think you have had an increase in the coyote population.
A cousin had a similar problem come up when the price of coyote pelts dropped a few years ago. Fewer people hunted and trapped them so more survived and started killing the fox (last one on his ranch lived in the shelter belt by the house because it was the only place the coyotes would leave it alone).
 
I spoke with the dog warden this morning to update him on our situation.

We discussed the various coyote sightings, and he told us he saw one standing in a field in broad daylight immediately after his last visit here. Then he wondered if we knew about a WOLF (male) that was caught near us not long ago, toward the end of last year. Well, how many dogs and coyotes did that wolf breed before he was discovered? Do we possibly have coyotes with more than the usual amount of wolf genetics found in eastern coyotes? If so, 8 sheep dead in one night makes more sense.

Dog warden and game commissioner (who wasn’t sure it was a wolf) were looking at this wolf in plain daylight. Dog warden said, “I have inspected enough wolf kennels that I know what a wolf looks like.” He pointed out the close-set gold eyes, the general body structure and game commissioner finally agreed it was a wolf.

The critter we saw last spring (2003) right next to a sheep pasture (where at least one lamb was missing) had the same eyes----close set and glowed gold/orange in the spotlight. The critter was standing in tall grass near a pond, yet we could easily see its eyes.
 
I haven't spotlighted a whole lot of coyotes, but the ones I have known, do have yellow eyes.
coyote5.jpg
 
tjschol said:
Hello. I farm in VA, so similar to PA. In our ecosystems we have coywolves, not often straight coyote. Some of the animals are smaller and hunt more like coyote, ie usually solo or in pairs. Some tend to hunt more like wolves and are on the larger size approximating our maremma sizes. Typically the packs compete for fawns, rodents, leftovers from hunters who dont remove the whole deer. The point I am making is that there is no one kill style. It is pack learned and individual dependent, although the teenagers are more sloppy that the older seasoned hunters. We had our first recent attack a week ago on a full grown breeding ewe. Neck wounds, eaten to the skeleton except for head. Since then we moved the ewes close to farmhouse and a large Coywolf pair has been hunting the laying hens we have in chicken trailers while eyeing the sheep. They are wholly unafraid of us, to the point of concern. I am set up to cull this pair. But, only this pair. I’ve read that eliminating indiscriminately can exacerbate the problem as ‘non livestock attacking packs’ guard territories and that large scale attrition stimulates higher pup counts, leading to more incidents of teenaged idiocy and other attacks. When our old alpha Maremma was alive he kept coywolves away merely by howling from the main farm area. Now that he has passed and the two pups are still young, there does not seem to be an effective deterrent, other than myself, patience, and my rifle in this short term. In the long term I guess I’m going to have to go teach our pups how to yip out warnings and howls. Finally, we have seen pure killing attacks …. In all three cases they were out of control dogs. Well fed, collars on, just out for a rumble. Merciless. Thank you for this forum. Andrea
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tjschol said:
Thanks for responding to our coyote situation. I do have to clarify some information based on the postings.

Cal: Thanks for the long distance “guess”. People have bears in the area on occasion, but the kills were not characteristic of bear – no scat and the area was clean around the kills. Bears, we are told, are very messy. Only the necks showed bite marks, and the chest under the front leg was opened with the guts out. Only one of the heavy lambs had the swipe marks on the back. None of the other kills or wounded had swipes. There are cats around here, but the game commission says we don’t have any…

Rich: Thank you too. None of the kills or wounded had pulled wool or were hamstrung. We are not ruling out dogs, but none of the animals showed characteristics of dogs.

Tommy: We have seen coyote in the area and did get one a few weeks ago. Our neighbors have seen them, we have seen them and we know with out a doubt they are in the area. Almost all of the feral cats in the area are gone and we have not seen any red fox all year. Since we are out in the fields all the time, we are used to seeing fox all the time – except for this year. Not one.

Teasipper: Thanks for the site. Good information here.

Tactical .20: All the kills/wounded had neck injuries – with out exception. Some of the wounded had bites under the front leg (breast area) and some had bites on the rear upper leg toward the anus. Some of the bags on the wounded females were ripped also. All the kills had been torn open at the breast and some at the rear with multiple neck wounds.

NASA: What you say about multiple kills we have also heard. That is the one condition that doesn’t seem to fit coyote – but no other predator has the rest of the characteristics that we found – consistently.

We have had a number of smaller lambs disappear from our paddock at various times (we rotationally graze our flock. Our sheep are outside all year). Something else we noted with the attack was that no lambs were found dead – only full-grown ewes (about 150 lbs.) were killed. Many of the wounded were our larger lambs (40 to 50 lbs) and none that size were found dead.

If anyone has any additional thoughts, please let us know.

Thanks to all.
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