saw coyote stalking calves tonight

I don't want to start a feud because I have seen severe depredation by coyotes on sheep but I can't imagine a cow herd that would tolerate coyotes during calving season. Certainly after years in the cattle business often calving over 100 heifers a year plus my old cows have I seen coyotes in this area displaying the kind of behavior described by some of you. Lord! What kind of milk toast cows are those guys raising and what kind of condition are those cows in that they wouldn't fight. Are we talking extreme deep snow conditions? Poorly nourished cattle? Poor herd management? Or perhaps coyotes getting credit for feral dog activities? I'm curious and not wanting to start a fight.
My old girls will stomp the pee-waden out of a coyote that brazen.
Pack999 - What planet do you live on? Certainly not earth.
 
I need to get out. Summer just makes my time feel wasted and unproductive. I was making a ghillie suit, but it is heavy, itchy, and hot. I can't sit still in it long enough. Kind of off topic but, I see plenty of pheasants when I am hunting coyotes. I see coyotes when I am pheasant hunting. Its never the intended species. Makes me mad. This happen to anybody else?
 
pack999,
The deer and turkey hunting is super good around here. This is especially true if you hunt with bow and arrow. I am sorry to report that the coyote population is way down because of mange. Coyote calling really sucks around here, just to put it nicely. There are still some healthy coyotes to be found in the more open farm country to my east, but they are dang spooky.
 
Pack999,

Sorry I came off a little harsh on you. I did not realize your age. But I hate to see what inexperience and general feel good disney, discovery channels/liberals are producing. Anytime I hear your argument it gets my hackles up. Also I gues this is more a matter of common sense than intellegence. If you feel you could beat me at a test then so be it. Obviously you know very little about lions if you think you can simply just see and walk away from them. Yesterday I had a snake miss me by inches while spraying weeds. Never buzzed nothing, coiled and stiked with out a noise. After it struck it tried 2 more times as I was running down the hill. How easy do you think a lion is to spot? The last one I saw was 8 sreps from me before I saw her. AS far as your argument, I have heard it for years used by anti hunters and those environmentalist that want to ban everything. I have always seen it as a uneducated narrow point of veiw. The same point of veiw that I might have once had. Again I was wrong for having it, and expeirence has taught me other wise.

On the indian thing they were wasteful, Okanagon explained this very well. I grew up being told that the indians used every part of the animal, blah blah blah. Then when you think about indians were limited to what they would carry, so if 100 buffalo went over an edge, they surely did not pack around 100 bladders etc. The indians simply lacked the technology and the population to make significant environmental impacts. If they could have they would have.

The argument about the snakes, lions etc. Was meant to say that by packs argument we invaded their habitat and it is only natural for them to react. By his same logic we should never swat a mosquitto, pull a tick, trap a mouse, etc. Because we are in their land.

IBGunner,

I have seen the same thing, infact my boss keeps a pair of old long horn Cows around for the very same reason. But not all cows are that way, especially the first year heifers. They have a tendancy to run more times than not. The other problem is many people do not realize the size of the range that these cows maybe on. Around the ranch house you may only get one or 2 yotes running together. Out in some of this counrty I have personnally seen as many 13 running a small valley. When there are that many yotes the cows do not stand much chance.
 
That’s another person that is claiming to have been stalked by a lion. 1 maybe but 2? Now I have an excuse for not having any luck coyote hunting Rich. To elks funny you mention that because I do enjoy watching the discovery channel. I would swat mosquitoes and pull ticks; they are tiny and insignificant and spread disease. Larger animals are different.
 
pack999,
We do have a few cougars here in Iowa, but they are secretive. I have never seen one around here, just their tracks. For cougar in the wild to be agressive toward man would be very rare around here. Now in some of those popular tourist parks out west? Different critters are found there.
 
pack999, every time a coyote takes one of my calves, I lose about $600 next fall's paycheck !! As for the cougar, he is more secretive than the rattler - I was calling back in 1994 with a retired government trapper, and on one stand, we found lion tracks on top of our boot tracks - about 20 yards behind our set-up !!! That 'll make the hair on the back of your neck STAND UP !!! You are receiving a decent formal education, now your ready to get a worldly education in how things REALLY are; as opposed to how the academics have told you they are. Good luck with reality.
Mark
 
OK, 13 coyotes in one pack is quite unusual in my area. I wouldn't know how a cow would react to that many making a concerted effort on a calf. In fact, I've never seen it in Kansas. But then when we ran cattle a rifle or shotgun always rode in the truck with us and I never let a coyote slip by without at least a good morning or good evening smoke pole greeting. Time to do some hunting and trapping I'd say.
 
callingCar.gif
 
it takes 6 to 8 weeks for a dominate pair to set up in a area that you kill a dominate pair out of.
the trick is getting the right pair. the dominate pair in the spring will not allow other coyotes in their denning area and the dominate pair are the ones who do most predation on live stock.
you don't have to kill all coyotes to save sheep or cattle just three. the dominate dog, female and baby sitter female.
then you have six weeks to Finnish calving. after that amount of time calves are to big but lambs never get to big.
i have seen coyotes like any sheep two years old or less.
they will take older ones but tend to separate out younger ewes around here.
I'm not a expert but that has been my observations.
this offends people but march threw June IS the best time for control work.
i can take out a pair or a triplet and two months later there will be a new pair setting up in the old ones territory.
i have one ranch where the coyotes have calf hunting to a science, two coyote occupy the cow while one grabs the calf and drags it onto the ice of the river where the cow will not follow then they kill it. cows are like horses they will only go so far they will not endanger them self in defence of a calf and will not due something when they think they will be hurt doing it.
calves that are born in february here are in the most danger. ranchers calve early to get bigger calves in the fall. the coyotes tend to run in bigger groups and taking the dominate pair this time of year wont work its best handled by aerial gunning. calling can reduce some but with the coyote numbers in wyoming its not enough to keep up in breeding season.
ranchers should consider this and calve the end of march into April. they don't like this because that is when wyoming gets its heavy snows and bad storms. they try to hit the indian summer we have most years in february the temps are colder but the snow is less.
most all ranchers here in wyoming have lost stock to coyotes but have lost much more to storms.
?any of this make sence to anyone? think i got long winded /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
 
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on the lion thing make that three i have had them come to my calling 4 times and once was almost lunch, crouched at under 20 feet directly behind me and screamed.
if it wasn't for my cousin it would have jumped me. lions try to attack from behind and grab by the neck.
he was almost close enough and when he screamed he expected a deer to jump up not my cousin 15' beside him.
if i would have tunned my head he would have been on me.
i don't blame the lion its the fool sitting on the creek blowing a deer in distress. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smiliesmack.gif oh guess that was me
 
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OK, 13 coyotes in one pack is quite unusual in my area. I wouldn't know how a cow would react to that many making a concerted effort on a calf. In fact, I've never seen it in Kansas. But then when we ran cattle a rifle or shotgun always rode in the truck with us and I never let a coyote slip by without at least a good morning or good evening smoke pole greeting. Time to do some hunting and trapping I'd say.



It is hard to say. really the calves do not have as much trouble as the sheep do. Again I am not saying that shooting a few yotes will keep all predation away, but if there is a yote in the field with my stock, it will get to know I am thinking about it.


Pack,

I hope you are seeing how some things work. When animals are causing damage to humans, they should be dealt with. You call teh mosquitos and ticks in significant and you have no problem with taking them out. Are they not animals too just doing what nature intended them to do? How can you say that one animals harm is acceptible and you feel pitty on the animal, but other animals should be squished? Also where can you draw a distinction? Is it a size thing? As far as the mountain lions go, I shot one that was a max 8 paces away that was crouched and ready to pounce. IN another case my wife and I ran into a mother and cub, we had too look big and back away to get her to back off from 20 yards.

The point is, in no way should animals be left to do their free will at the expense of humans. Also jus tbecause I have this lack of tollerance does not mean I have no respect or sympathy for the animal. I would just rather prefer the only time I needed to shoot something was when I was out to hunt.
 
cmiddeton, good post. I have given your post a lot of thought. On the aerial gunning I just dont know. We shoot from the plane any time we can get one wich is only about twice a year. A lot of coyotes hit the ground,all that can be shot are. When Calif,did away with trapping, all we could hope for was to keep the numbers in check. Good luck. It gets harder and harder.
 
elks,

Just to clarify things a bit, wasn't the you lion describe as "ready to pounce" called in on purpose? If a predator is coming to what it believes is a prey animal in distress how else should it act? Also how should a mother bear act when confronted with what it thinks is a threat to its cub?

I guess I'm kinda lost as to what you are getting at with those two examples. You act as if those animals had no reason to react the way they did.
 
i was bow hunting deer walking up a fence cut threw the aspens when a bobcat jumped out on the trail and started coming at me. i took my face mask off and yelled at it. it kept coming growling and hissing. i was running backwards waving my arms and shooting arrows at its feet. it still kept coming after 75 yrd of this it finally ran off the side of the road and three kittens jumped down from a tree.
that scared me worse then the lion encounter.
if she would have stayed hidden I'd have never known the kittens were there.
the aerial gunning i feel is most effective in reducing total numbers of coyotes during breeding season when the snow makes it easy to see them and the coyotes tend to pack up in groups of 6 to 8.
i can take several out of a group with calls but the plane can get them all. once you call and kill the female the group splits up if you kill the dominate male they move.
if you can kill the whole group is the best result.
WOW i must be learning to spell i only had to fix two words
 
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Lonny,

Yes the first was called and I did have a tag. The point is that if the lion was a threat in any manner to human live or porperty it should be dealt with. If you reread the series of post, the comment that started this whole thing was along the lines of, "The animals were here first and they are only doing what comes natural to them. Hence we should just live with it." IN my case yes I was calling for lion, but at the same time had that been a bear or a wolve at that distance ready to eat me, I have every right to defend myself. That is the point. THe other lion we ran into was while archery hunting for elk. Again we were sneaking trough the woods etc. but when push came to shove if that lion had not backed down I had an arrow ready and a knife as backup. Luckily in that case the lion slipped away. The other point about the lion story I was trying to make was in reference to the "I would call you a dumb(insert bad word here) for getting that close to a lion." My point was, that even when you are hunting for them, senses on high allert and really doing all you can to detect them, you can't. They simply can slip right on top of you without you knoiwing it. That was why I brought up the lion story, to show that they will sneak right up on you with out your knowledge.

I brought up all the other animals that have negative consequences to show that coyotes are not the only animals that cause humans problems, and if he wanted to help old poor wiley out then he should also feel sorry and try and help out the lions in Claifornia, Bears in Colorado, Prarrie Dogs, Ground Squrriels, Ferral Cats, etc. They are all in the same boat.

Cmiddleton,

You are correct the best form of coyote control is probably air gunning, but it is expensive and should be done at the right time of year. I also agreee that time of calving/weather at that time has a lot to do with the calving succes. Ranchers here also push for early calving that way they get higher wieghts at the fall sells. At some point there is trade off between going to early and and weight, I am not sure when that is, but must around have a few calves on the ground before the end of FEB.
 
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once you call and kill the female the group splits up if you kill the dominate male they move.


cmiddleton, don't get paranoid on me, I'm not flaming you.
Where did you get that information?
It is contrary to what I have seen in the areas I have called and it is contrary to every study I have read.
 
I lost about 30 fawns last year to coyotes. I didn't shoot any coyotes. But this year I'm shooting, poisoning, running over with my car, digging pups out of dens, and whatever else I can think of to get rid of the coyotes. I don't give a [beeep] what anyone thinks about it. I think I will see what all methods have been outlawed by PETA and other groups and try them too. Do I like money better than coyotes? Why, yes I do. Losing $60,000 worth of deer fawns has made mad and I'm not going to take it any more!!!!!
 
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