Yesterday morning, when I went out to check the cows. I jumped a coyote just below the house coming out of a draw. The darn thing was right in with our cows! He saw me and took off at a leisurely lope. With all four dogs in the truck with me, there was no hope of turning around to get the rifle out of the gun rack to shoot. There is barely enough room to breathe with them all in there, let alone mess with a rifle and get a good shot off! Mr. Coyote kept his slow pace up as he dipped down into the creek bottom and then skirted the feed ground. I followed him going slow too so I could shoot him with my camera which had been on the dashboard. I whistled and time or two and he barely stopped to look at me. He then just trotted off over a hill.
Little does Mr. Coyote know that his days are numbered. Many friends and neighbors in the area are having coyote predation problems this calving season. That combined with numerous coyote sightings below our house and creek and the boldness of this particular animal made me very concerned. Concerned enough that I called the government hunter to see if he was going to be in our area soon. We have neighbors who regularly have him working on coyote control and he added us to the list.
One of my sons has hounds and he is planning a trip home with them to go coyote hunting. He came last year and he and the hounds put the run on the coyotes around here. So either way, Mr. Coyote, we've got your number. Til then......LEAVE OUR CALVES ALONE!!!!!
5 comments:
There has to be something they can eat besides your calves. Have you thought of getting a donkey to protect your herd?
They are nasty this year - the wet weather each year means more foliage, more rodents to eat it, more coyote pups can be born to them = it must encourage larger litters...I hope your calves stay safe this calving season!
its REALLY not cool when they get so comfortable like that! Hope the hunters (state and related) are able to take care of matters and at least put some fear in them. Malcolm and I plan to get some sheep here in another year or so, so I'm sure he'll be working on our coyote population too. But so far I havn't heard of them bothering the calves this year.
We have a bunch of the mangy critters around here, too. The hubs and some of the teenage boys like to sit out in the back pasture closest the the draw that runs up from the creek and play the wounded animal calls. They pick them off as they come up. Our blue heeler thinks he has to be Mr. Macho and chase them off, which often gets him into trouble.
I hope you get those mangy critters. They got one of our calves this year, right at birth.
Linda
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