Farm Fact Friday: Coyote Control

Hello everyone welcome back to another Farm Fact Friday oh it’s a chilly one. Earlier in the week we got a little tease of warmer weather but we’re back to it being bitterly cold today I want to talk a little bit about a predator control type of issue and the reason I’m standing where I am is because you typically hear these predators uh in a wooded area and typically at night we’re talking today about coyote control.

Coyotes are part of the canine family and they are native to North America they have the adaptation of very thick fur that keeps them really really warm probably much warmer than what I am right now in cold temperatures and they have excellent camouflage they have a grayish brown to a yellowish brown coat and on the underside it’s a whitish color so they can blend in with the trees it’s very very easy to see them. However after a snowfall and if the moon is bright and reflects off of that sun or off of the snow it makes it easy to see them um during the night time now those descriptions may be typical of some you know canine species but one thing that is most distinct I think about coyotes is their sound it’s it can be eerie their barks, their yips, their howls when you hear it you can tell and if there’s a big group of them together it literally sounds like they’re having a party it sounds like people just loud talking everything that happens at a party uh they can could really sound like that. So if you’re ever um out and hear that type of sound you have a coyote group around you somewhere.

So the reason I talk about it today as it relates to farming and agriculture is that coyotes are predators to animals that we have on our farms they actually have very high percentage of the predator-related deaths when it comes to sheep and goats and cattle. So that’s one issue even if you don’t have a farm but you have pets like a dog or a cat coyotes can potentially attack those animals as well and then wild game is also part of part in their radar if they need to feed their their young. So you know mice and squirrels and rabbits will work but if there are babies to feed or you know more animals in the pack that’s not going to be enough and they’re going to go to maybe a fawn and a baby deer to get that for extra meat to feed the masses or they may find um any of the farm animals that are out on pasture and find maybe one that’s smaller or has an injury and end up killing that to make sure that they have enough food for themselves. So lots of different reasons um that coyote control is so important and like I said it’s not just protecting our farm animals it could also be protecting our our pets and if we’re hunters we also don’t want them to attack whatever it is that we’re hunting.

So there are methods for taking care of coyotes uh this can be things like having you know lights or sounds that detract them maybe use of guard animals um if if you do have fencing maybe considering how you can make improvements to the fencing um I would say the one thing around here that’s most popular would be hunting or trapping them like I said if it if it’s been a beautiful snow and the moon is really bright makes for great conditions for coyote hunting but just having a coyote overpopulation can have detrimental effects which is why we have to take care of them in some form or fashion. So um you know just one of those things that we have to consider living in rural areas and to make sure that the animals that we’re raising on our farms aren’t in danger uh just by being out in pasture. So with that by golly have a great rest of your Friday a wonderful weekend and we’ll check you back next week for another Farm Fact Friday take care.