Coyotes kill deer?

J

Joetrapper

New member
The other day I caught a big coyote and his scat was full of deer hair. We don't have much snow here. Fields are half bare and maybe 8 inches in the woods hard packed. But most of the yotes I get are rolling in fat. I'm wondering how well thay can kill deer without deep snow. We have had a few easy winters in a row and we should have a lot more deer than we do. (Canada next to Maine border)
 
I have seen 2 yotes run down a mature Wt buck in early fall with no snow,they just harass them till they make a stand and hamstring them.
 
I killed a coyote stalking two young does. They will take a fawn right at birth then go for the does rear end the same with cattle. Seen it more than once.
 
They will eat the heck out of deer, if they get a chance. Lots fawns and yearlings fall victim. I know of cases where full sized healthy mule deer are taken. The heavy snows make them way more likely to get deer. Especially when there is a crust to the snow that the deer fall through and the yotes stay on top.
 
Coyotes regularly kill caribou here in Newfoundland, even moose. They basically just harass them to death, tearing at their hind quarters, bleeding em and wearing them down. Wildlife biologists here have observed single coyotes bringing down adult caribou.
 
We have found coyote dens with up to 13 or so fawn skulls in them. These dogs are rough on the young-of-the-year deer and antelope here in ND.
 
Coyotes eat young, weak and old deer mostly. Healthy adult deer have learned how to avoid predators. They also scavage. This could be a good reason for the fur in scat. I will take coyotes over wolves... I can hunt coyotes.
 
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Coyotes eat young, weak and old deer mostly. Healthy adult deer have learned how to avoid predators. They also scavage. This could be a good reason for the fur in scat. I will take coyotes over wolves... I can hunt coyotes.



This is the samething anti-hunters will tell you. The problem is it is not true. Coyotes are opprutunist. they will kill and eat whatever they can. At one point i saw 4 harrasing a full sized mature doe. She had fought them for a while and were just waiting to wear her out. They didn't get the chance as one met its fate from a bullet out of my 270. I had no doubt they would have killed her. Again she was full sized healthy looking mule deer doe, that they manged to corner.
 
deer are sprinters, so a coyote wouldn't have a hard time wearing them out before going in for the kill. I've seen a beagle run a deer to the point of exhaustion, so I know I coyote could.
 
I agree with you guys totally. I have not had the chance to see a coyote take down a deer yet. But I know they do. But the funny thing here in Pa, our game commission tells everyone that they don't take down deer. Just another lie from them guys.
I've heard guys telling stories of dens being found with 30-40 deer carcasses around them. Mainly fawns. But I guess the deer just all died there naturally. HA HA
 
A couple of years ago I saw where 3 coyotes cut the track of a feeding deer on 6 inches of snow. They started following the deer trail so I decided to follow them to see what happened. When they first flushed the deer it ran all out for about 600 or 700 yards then stopped and turned around. The coyotes kept after it, not running but just trotting along. It was dark then so I picked up the trail the next morning. The deer took off again making good jumps. Those coyotes kept trotting along behind. I followed that trail for about five miles as the crow flies according to a topographical map. That deer was jumping most of the way. The last half mile or so the deer was walking along and the coyotes had veered off.

This might have been an exceptional case, but it seems to me they have to work at it to get an adult deer when footing is good. Sometimes they might get lucky and chase the deer in front of another coyote.
 
A favorite trick of coyotes up around the missouri river during winter is try to run them onto the ice. Once a deer makes that fatal mistake, they will often times slip, splay out on the ice and become coyote food. I have not seen this first hand, but have seen the evidence on occasion.
 
i found where 2 coyotes were fallowing a single grown deer the deer was running and the coyotes were trotting..then i found in the snow where 2 more coyotes from a differen't direction joined in then another one later on in the chase..i fallowed them for about 1000 yards and about that time every jump the deer mad there was blood slatting everywhere..fallowed it until it went onto posted property and it was bleeding bad...you could see when the deer stopped the coyotes would swing out around the deer..im sure that deer was killed...have seen them chasing deer first hand lots of times.
 
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Coyotes eat young, weak and old deer mostly. Healthy adult deer have learned how to avoid predators. They also scavage. This could be a good reason for the fur in scat. I will take coyotes over wolves... I can hunt coyotes.



This is the samething anti-hunters will tell you. The problem is it is not true.



No flames to Thwap, but elks is correct. It is quite normal for coyotes to select the best and healthiest sheep in a large herd to kill. I'd assume they do the same as much as they can with wild game, while not negating their opportunist nature and scavenging. It is a curious fact, but checkable with anyone who loses sheep with any regularity to coyotes.

Coyotes prey heavily on deer when there is a crusted snow of 14 inches or more, when the deer punch through each step and the coyotes run on top. The other situation is when coyotes deliberately herd deer onto lake ice and harrass them till they fall on the slick ice, often damaging their pelvic bone if their hind legs split in the fall.

Wolves do the same when they can. The infamous Custer wolf once passed through a cow pasture, then a corral of cattle and selected a prize winning show beef to kill, the most valuable animal on the ranch. That might be a coincidence if it only happened once, but it is typical. A guy who protected sheep from coyotes told me that if you could train a coyote to judge animals for you at a stock sale you would always pick the healthiest best genetics in the place, and never be fooled by one that looked good but had a health or other problem.

Another myth is that coyotes only kill what they need to eat. A pair of coyotes can and will kill dozens of sheep in a night and may only eat the liver from one or two. It is probably fun for the yotes to chase and catch them.

Oops, missed Mike Granger's comment on coyotes chasing deer on ice & so repeated. Take it as a ditto.
 
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I often times wonder where these "wildlife experts" get their facts. It would seem to me that plain common sense would get them to have a more accurate idea of what is actually going on then their all their academic musings. I think they spend their time thinking about how to justify their ideas, rather then actually testing their theories against imperical evidence.
Well I guess its not like their scientists or anything!
 
I have seen with my own a eyes a single yote take down a healthy doe. I was setting up in my favorite spot and heard a doe bleat and bleat and bleat. Looked out in the field and saw a yote holding on to the throat of the deer. The deer dragged the yote for about 50 yards and finally went down from exhaustion. The deer was still moving when the yote started eating it from the hind quarters in ward. It was an amazing sight. I told the game warden about it and he said "must have been a sick deer". It sure looked healthy and big to me?


Mountainyote...
 
Me too, my son and I watched a single coyote (it wasn't married /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif) run down and kill a full grown mule deer doe. There was nothing that appeared wrong with the doe. Many times I have seen a coyote trotting around with a whitetail fawn in its jaws in early June. Yeah, they are good deer killers.
 
A guy I worked with told me he and his brother were in their tree stands bowhunting when he heard a thrashing sound coming thru the woods, it was a coyote clamped onto the throat of the doe, they ran by him and that was the last he saw of them.
 
Hey Bigdan, maybe the PGC will get more facts to satisfy their poor taste in proclaimations when they raise the price of the license. But one little question to the group. I have read that coyotes do not pack-up and kill in groups. That mates/pairs will hunt together along with that years pups. Do coyotes pack-up and hunt together?
 
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I have read that coyotes do not pack-up and kill in groups. That mates/pairs will hunt together along with that years pups. Do coyotes pack-up and hunt together?



Well, coyotes certainly pack up. I've seen groups of seven together several times, and one group of eight. The usual name for such a group is a pack. I haven't observed such a group kill anything, but three times I've had five at once race each other to my call. I assume they all planned to be in on the kill and eating of the prey. Since far western coyotes roam in packs of 5-8 often (with early west reports of packs many times that size) it is hard to imagine that they would not hunt and kill that in such a group, but I surmise.

Maybe each of those groups is a mated pair and their offspring of that year, which I would still call a pack. We need info from a coyote biologist or knowledgeable trapper here. Family groups in summer have obvious pups, and a live pup still shows juvenile appearance till about Christmas, mayber longer to more experienced eyes. All this thinking aloud to say that some packs look like all mature animals rather than a family group.

I wish I could remember exactly what months I have seen packs together. Certainly through the Fall and mid winter, but when mating season starts in Feb. they tend to pair up, though several may still be in fairly close proximity (and might hunt/kill together?) I've seen 11 scattered in singles and pairs on three or four miles of lake ice in Feb. Have also seen one following 50 yards behind a pair, being chased back, and then following again, in Feb.

The short yearlings are booted out or leave on their own sometime in the Fall and are the easiest to call and most prone to all kinds of death, from traffic to attacks from other coyotes. I skinned a young female once that was cut and slashed all over, with broken teeth and had the long canine tooth from another coyote broken and embedded between vertebra in her back. She'd been cut up and nearly killed by one or more other coyotes. I'm not sure what the dynamic is between these pups going out on their own in about Oct. or Nov. while yet seeing packs of coyotes for several more months after that. It is pure guess but family groups may split up and non-family packs form about that time for more efficient hunting as cold comes on and as a preliminary to mating season pecking order.

The most common sight of hunting coyotes is the lone male foraging for his mate and her pups, when he often hunts all day long. The next most common is to see a mated pair hunting together, often mousing near each other in a field. They show up that way before the pups are born and then a couple of weeks after as they hunt for the pups as well as themselves. A close look will show which of the pair is a lactating female.

Where did you read that info that coyotes don't hunt in packs? That might be right but obviously I'm doubtful without more evidence. Thanks.
 


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