Coyotes and Deer

[N80]

We have a lot of coyotes here. And there seems to be a lot of coyote mythology out there. Latest rumor here is a story about a guy leaving his deer stand in the dark being followed by a pack of coyotes that kept coming back even after he shot at them.

Plenty of farmers claim that the coyotes eat calves. What they usually see is coyotes getting the afterbirth after a calf is born or eating a still born calf. No reliable witness around here has seen a coyote kill a calf. One semi-reliable witness claims he saw one after a calf but the mother cow had no problem running the coyote off.

The local biologist says coyotes primarily eat mice and rabbits. They say they do not attack or eat full size deer. They say they do not hunt in packs. They say they would be unlikely to have any success with a full grown turkey.

Others say that coyotes develop hunting habits based on the environment they live in. So how they behave here might be totally different from how they behave out west.

I bring this up because of one second-hand report and one instance I witnessed first hand. The second-hand report came from my wife. She saw three coyotes chasing a doe across a field in front of our cabin. The coyotes were not close together like an organized pack but they were all following the same doe. My wife said the doe was running but not flat out. She ran in a large circle and came across the field again before jumping in our lake and swimming across. The coyotes did not follow. It was in the spring and I think she was baiting them away from a fawn.

The first hand account was last Wednesday. I was deer hunting and heard something running into the valley I was in and a large doe came flying down the hill, flat out, tail down, as fast as she could. Maybe 20 yards behind here came a coyote. Also full steam ahead, hot on her trail. I whistled several times and the coyote stopped but was out of sight. I heard something else coming and it was another coyote also running flat out behind them. I whistled again and it stopped and I killed it.

So I have no idea what to believe about coyotes and their interaction with deer. Was what my wife and I saw actual 'pack' hunting? It certainly was not cooperative pack hunting like wolves but it was still more than one coyote following the same game. Where they really chasing this deer for food or just because they are dog-like and chase stuff? Can a coyote out-last a deer enough to finally catch it and then take it down? How many coyotes does it take to take down a healthy adult deer....which can fight really hard and be dangerous when cornered. Why would a hungry coyote expend that much energy (long chase, dangerous take down) when we are swimming in rabbits and mice?

Would be interested in any reliable info about coyotes vs adult deer. I'd be willing to guess that we don't really know a whole lot of cold hard info about coyote behavior.

 

[whistlepig]

The coyotes take the fawns in the spring. From what I have read coyotes kill 40% of newborn fawns every spring in the areas that they established in.

 

[npalen]

Back in the early sixties as a kid on the Kansas farm I witnessed two coyotes taking turns trying to catch a jack rabbit. There was snow on the ground and there must have been 50-100 jack rabbits in a cluster on a hillside. Probably should have just observed but couldn't pass up the chance to bag a coyote with my trusty 22. I missed, of course.
There was a 25 cent bounty on jackrabbits that winter and they were thick as fleas on a hound. I recall coming up on what looked like one but it was motionless, covered with snow and nestled in the side of a shock of cane bundles. I figured it had froze to death but poked it with the gun barrel just to make sure. I probably jumped a couple feet when it suddently came to life, ejected itself and was off like a shot.

 

[whistlepig]

From what little I know I don't think they take down grown deer unless sick, old, or injured. I don't like coyotes. I have never heard anything good said about coyotes.

 

[ddigger]

As a westerner, grew up in AZ, lived in Colorado and now in Northern California,I am now 58. I have hunted and lived around coyotes my whole life. I dont consider them to be a threat to our deer herds. They are very opertunistic hunters, they will often pursue prey just to see how it reacts, if it shows weakness they will continue. They do and will hunt as a pack, but not so much for the purpuse of killing larger prey, but more for flushing and herding towards other members for the kill. Allthough I have seen many singles raid a chicken coup or rush a flock of turkeys. I for one am happy to have them around, to a point, because I can tell when they are not frequenting my land as my rodent population noticably grows. I have even gone so far as to leave a bag of cheap dog food out for a poor or orphaned pup. But have also poped many for being to bold. I dont know if the ones that have migrated to the east behave differantly. I just wanted to share my thoughts.

 

[whistlepig]

Coyotes are relatively new around this area. I would say they came in about 15 years ago. We didn't have any problems with rodent populations before they came. The only rodent population being reduced by coyotes around here is cottontail rabbits, chipmunks, and squirrels. I would agree that these particular rodents have been greatly reduced here by coyotes. And they take 40% of the newborn deer fawns in the spring. Not to mention that they snatch an occasional cat or small dog out of someone's back yard. What's not to love about coyotes?

 

[westcliffe01]

Last year I got involved in a predation problem on a local sheep farm. The farmer called me and said that during the previous year he had lost 80% of his lambs, mostly one at a time, sometimes 2 at a time. He had also lost about 20% of his adult sheep in the same period. Clearly, they felt that their farming operation was not going to survive under this kind of pressure.

I have spent a lot of time investigating the situation. It is a 100 acre property and unlike what is typical for Michigan and Ohio, the property is not at all flat. There are 2 major "draws" more than 50ft deep from where the homestead is to the farthest boundary. The historical problem is that both of the owners have "regular" jobs and have very little time to spend out on the land to interact with the predators. Both are also familiar with firearms but neither are hunters. The couple had lived on the farm about 5 years and prior to them the original owners had gotten old and frail and let a lot of maintenance slide. There was a lot of brush encroachment, to the point that access to certain parts of the property was really only possible on foot. Some areas around ponds were so brushed in that they are basically completely inaccessible. All the brushed in areas provided great cover for coyotes to set up and wait for the sheep to walk by.

I walked the property extensively and did a lot of observation and determined that no coyotes were actually living on the property. There was a lot of hunting activity around most of the periphery of the property by hunters who had access to the neighbors land. There is swamp to the west and a huge section of wild wooded property to the east where the coyotes seem to live. Unfortunately, the relationship with both neighbors means that we cannot access either property to get to the root of the problem. I tried using electronic callers to either call in the coyotes or get a vocal response from them in the evening and determined that they would not come out in the open during daylight hours. I spent many hours sneaking in before dawn in winter and observing any activity in proximity to the sheep. Typically, the coyotes arrived in pairs and sometimes they had a partially grown pup in tow. In my observation, they always made directly for the sheep. At dawn the sheep would be inside the barn and many of the coyotes I ran into were near the barn.

The first time I spotted a pair, they were at 250 yards from my blind, in the draw where they could not be seen from the farmhouse, going towards the barn. I fired and wounded what must have been the female. The male ran about 50 yards then stopped and looked back. I fired at him and missed. He ran another 100 yards and stopped again. By now he was at a range of 350 yards. I missed again. For the next month I had no sightings. Then I began running into a lone coyote in the dark while on my way to the blind. I personally believe this was the survivor and he possibly had pups to feed. We laughed about it, but I said that one of my primary weapons against the coyotes was drinking a lot of tea and marking my territory in all the areas we believed they were entering the property. A few months later, I killed a second coyote which was in the process of attacking turkeys. It was a dry female and she was pretty old. Her teeth were in bad shape. I have kept up my routine of tea drinking and territory marking and in the meantime we have started clearing brush with an emphasis on allowing access to the perimeter with a UTV so that the owners will more regularly get out there and be aware of what is going on.

This year we did pretty well in that only 2 sheep were lost through the lambing season and in late fall a single attack resulted in the death of another 2 sheep. Of all the sheep killed, only 1 was consumed. 1 died after being chased by 2 or 3 coyotes in the hotter than normal fall, possibly to a heart attack. In the same attack, a yearling was bitten multiple times in the hindquarters and died the following day due to blood loss and shock.

So, in my humble opinion, coyotes absolutely can and will kill turkeys and sheep. It may not take 2 minutes, but sheep are pretty stupid animals who have no idea how to defend themselves. The coyotes appear to try to separate one from the herd and then either run it down, taking turns like wolves do with elk, or by inflicting many individual bites until the animal is weakened. This is classical dog/hyena style behavior. Coyotes will pick what they consider easy targets. If they get shot at while on your property, they are going to more readily become discouraged and go after mice or rabbits. In areas which are intensively farmed, once the crops are harvested there tends to be a big decline in the critters supported by the crops and then they turn their attention to whatever is left. Depending on whether the sheep are sheltered at night, coyotes will also move the activities to night time. In cold winter conditions, cold and hunger drives them to go out in the day anyway. The last 2 winters have been mild, so that pressure has not been as intense as what it will be in a "normal" winter.

That is my 2c on this topic.

 

[strum456]

I'm sure this story could be looked up and verified... About 2 or 3 years ago in Greensburg, PA a pack of coyotes where supposedly harassing cows in a pasture. They chased the cows through a fence causing one of the cows to be struck by a STATE POLICE OFFICER!!! This occurred on route 30 in Greensburg.

 

[donb2]

I walked out on my elevated deck overlooking a 600 foot path out to a pond and wooded area and saw a big yellow lab be chased flat out down the path toward me by a lone coyote. I called out and the dog kept coming, coyote stopped.

 

[Biggreenavalanche]

Go to google, type in "coyote kills deer you tube"...multiple video/trail cam photos of coyotes killing full grown deer...they can and will kill and eat anything they can get their lips on, just a part of nature...

 

[Ken45101]

I have seen pairs of coyotes hunting together, probably for rodents. I've also seen a pair of them within 50 feet of our grazing horses. The horses were paying absolutely no attention to the coyotes, no more than they would our dogs. Apparently the horses are used to the coyotes being around.

Over the years we have had a couple of small dogs disappear that we suspect the coyotes may have been responsible for. OTOH, last winter our two medium sized dogs killed a coyote about 500' from the house.

 

[westcliffe01]

I honestly think there is a strong connection between predation and the age and condition of the coyotes. The older coyotes get the habits of the people on the farm figured out and become much bolder. If they have any kind of health issue (dental or mange), they try to get the most bang for the buck in their hunting efforts. A coyote has to catch a lot of mice or rabbits to provide near as much meat as a lamb. It is just that to get the lamb, they have to go a lot closer to where people are than where they can get the other wild critters.

That is why I think there is a sharp change in predation once you kill a few of the older coyotes. 1- the older experienced coyote is no longer leading the hunt with their experience in taking down the larger animals and 2 - they are no longer teaching their offspring the tricks of the trade. I believe that many of the kills where the animal was not eaten were "training exercises" for the pups.

Now I am expecting a new wave of attacks by the pups who got booted from the dens and having to fend for themselves. These probably have not yet had much in the way of interaction with people and some negative interactions as early as possible may go a long way to keeping them on the straight and narrow, or at least have them pick a different location. At the present rate, their populations seem to be increasing everywhere and the mild winters of the last 3 years are certainly a contributing factor.

This year, the deer population is Southern MI seems to be in a worse state than any other year I have seen. We have been hit hard by EHD and a DNR study on fawn predation has surprised the conservation officers because the kill rate was considerably higher than they thought. I have not heard of whether the paper has been published in the public domain, but the DNR range officers were discussing it once they had it circulated internally. I think the study was carried out in upper MI where the winter tends to be the dominating factor in deer numbers, but their findings showed that coyotes were the dominating factor, followed by winter and then by wolves. The wolf problem is more localized and where there are packs, they may be the local dominating factor, because they kill coyotes too.

 

[N80]

I have heard that a donkey in a pasture wards off coyotes. Might be complete folklore but like Ken mentioned the grown cows and horses around here pay very little attention to the coyotes even when close.

But, the more I read and the more I witness the more convinced I am that they need shooting as often as possible. I know it doesn't make a big dent in the population but it can't hurt. It used to be that I rarely shot at them because I did not want to mess up my deer hunt. I'm thinking about actively hunting them now.

 

[westcliffe01]

The problem with donkeys and Lamas is that they can sometimes pose a greater risk to the landowner than to the predators. Many of these critters have a pronounced mean streak. I believe a well known guy in Texas was kicked to death by his donkey this last year ? Don't recall if he was a mayor or held some other political office. Horses are not exactly defenseless, nor as stupid as sheep. Often enough, if one watches them, they will see the predators first because of their height and they do pay attention to what is going on.

 

[nybirdman]

I am in Northern NY right at the Canadian border.We have had coyotes for as long as I can remember.Our coyotes are larger up to 60lbs,average 30/35lbs.Certainly able to take down an adult deer.We call and hunt them with Fox hounds,last year the group I hunt with took 27,and it was a down year;40 is about average.All you can do is keep them in check ,they can never be totaly eliminated.I have a friend that used to raise Fallow deer.....coyotes broke in to his encloseure and wiped out his herd.

 

[sdkubota]

They killed my cat...and now must die!unch:

 

[Stick895]

Donkeys dislike dogs and coyotes because these resemble wolves, which they fear. Coyotes adjust their breeding based on the food supply to maintain their population: more food, more coyotes, less food, less coyotes.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

This has been something that always interested me. I hear people talk about "packs" of coyotes and being scared of them yet I have never seen more then one coyote at any time. They will kill a fawn and other small animals but a full grown deer can kill a coyote if need be. I think most people are just scared of them because of stories and movies and when it gets dark they panic. I have never seen a coyote actually catch anything but one of my helpers has seen a coyote chase a fawn into my field as she was raking hay on it. The fawn ran around for a while before it was caught and dragged away. Other then that I have only ever seen a fox catching mice in a field. It was actually quite comical as it was catching a lot of mice to take to the youngsters. Had around 4 or 5 mice in its mouth as it was trying to catch another with its front paws.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I am in Northern NY right at the Canadian border.We have had coyotes for as long as I can remember.Our coyotes are larger up to 60lbs,average 30/35lbs.Certainly able to take down an adult deer.We call and hunt them with Fox hounds,last year the group I hunt with took 27,and it was a down year;40 is about average.All you can do is keep them in check ,they can never be totaly eliminated.I have a friend that used to raise Fallow deer.....coyotes broke in to his encloseure and wiped out his herd.

While I am not disputing what happened at your friends farm I do want to mention my own experience with our deer. We have only ever had one coyote come up to our pens (that we have seen at least) and it came to the fawn pen. Couldn't get in and was peppered with a shot shell for even coming up this close. Our adult deer have had dogs come to the fence and never have we had any dogs or similar get into the fence. However, the deer will panic and crash the fence out of fear. If the fence wasn't built properly then I could see a dog or coyote being able to get in but other wise a deer will kill itself trying to get away from the threat. We have had deer break the antlers, cut their heads up and damage our fences when dogs have came near. Never had them make it out of the fence though. We are constantly checking our fences though and replacing broken posts and making sure the fence is anchored to the ground.

 

[westcliffe01]

It is more common to see pairs than single. Singles are usually juveniles who have not yet established their own territory and mated up. Or if older, perhaps the mate has died. It looks like infertile females get abandoned. Until the pups have grown, there could be a family group of 4 or 5. That is what people will refer to as a pack. It is not a pack in the way that one has with wolves, but if you are on your own and not armed, it certainly can be intimidating. Even one can be intimidating if it approaches closely and with persistence while licking its lips. Lets not forget the dead Canadian singer and all it took was 2 coyotes. She was partially consumed while alive. That is not the fate that most of us look forward to.

There is a nice youtube video of a daft Canadian that has a coyote try to gnaw on his boots while walking down a road. At some point he makes his shoes squeak and that gets the coyotes attention, since it sounds like prey.