Well I've been in denial for about a month that the "something bigger than a raccoon but smaller than a Collie" that I've glimpsed out of the corner of my eye could possibly be a coyote, but the other day something carried off two of my turkeys, and last night we heard them howling. We definitely have coyotes coming onto the property at night now. And that is definitely more of a nuisance than raccoons, possums, and neighbors' unsupervised dogs, which have already been making me feel like I live in some kind of war zone. I finally got the raccoons and possums mostly trapped and relocated and under control, and now this.

Short of building a ten-foot high fence around my entire property, what do you supposed is the most effective way of being able to continue to raise fowl and keep pets here now? I have no problem shooting them since coyotes don't belong in NC - I really hate that they are displacing the native foxes - but I never really get a good enough look at them to go blasting away. Do traps work? I'd hate to set out poison - no telling what might actually get into it. I've also heard that llamas are good at fending off coyotes - any truth to that?

I wouldn't be the lest bit surprised to see bears next! How on earth did our ancestors ever manage to raise livestock with all these things working against them?

LOL well I'm all for conservation - frankly I blame all this development around here for the sudden increase in predators on my land. Coyotes especially irk me, because they are only moving in here because they work so much better with human development than our native foxes do - well, did. The foxes are getting displaced by incoming coyotes, and that makes me sad. I'm sure we have bears but thankfully, at least so far, they don't breed like rats, the way the smaller critters tend to.

The foxes never bothered my poultry though. Possums and raccoons yes, but they are easy to trap - I catch about one a week around here, more in warmer weather. There probably aren't that many coyotes out there, but they definitely don't come in ones. It's like the head of the hydra - for every one you get rid of, another comes fleeing in from some nearby new development to take its place. It's not like you can just shoot them once and the problem is solved.

I just can't see myself sitting up all night every night for the rest of my life with a gun and IR glasses, and I'm sure that's not how our ancestors dealt with it, anyway, unless the need for sleep is something new in our culture... ;) I don't think they dealt with it by building twelve foot chain link fences around their entire property either (and besides, that would only slow the varmints down a little.)

They probably just had better dogs than I do... mine is a complete moron. I'm seriously considering trying a guard-alpaca. Anyone know anything about them?

I sympathize with anyone who has lost livestock to coyotes or dogs....

We have about 300 sheep in Pennsylvania, and our biggest mistake was not preventing coyote damage. By this I mean that although we knew 'yotes were around, we relied on fencing and observation to keep them at bay.

When we lost 30 sheep (both ewes and lambs) in two nights, we knew we had to do something, and do it fast. We considered a donkey, but when someone in Texas explained to me that a predator problem is best managed by predators, we ended up getting livestock guardian dogs.

There is NO WAY we could begin to do what these dogs do, and no way a donkey or llama could do it either. Donkeys and llamas (which are prey animals) will often work ok in a relatively confined area such as a small pasture that doesn't have a lot of brush or trees. They are effective simply because they don't like dogs/coyotes. Guardian dogs work differently - they actively patrol the entire pasture, and spend time sniffing and scent marking. They also bark, and it's been interesting to learn to distinguish the different types of barking from 'someone just drove in' to 'something is in the pasture with the sheep'. The (45 pound) coyotes in our area have learned that our (100+ pound) dogs are on duty 24/7, Miska: Miska hard at workand our losses are far less.

I attended a predator management seminar in Virginia and learned from wildlife biologists (who have plenty of research to back up their information) that coyotes are population-dependent reproducers. THis means that if a coyote population is 'disturbed' by unnatural means such as shooting, they will reproduce to make up the difference. We found this to be too true - one year, a hunter shot two coyotes behind our farm and the following spring we had more losses than usual.

We don't rely 100 percent on the dogs - nothing is completely effective - but it sure is easier to sleep knowing that the big white dogs are out there, awake all night, guarding by instinct and a strong bond with the flock

sheepwriter