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Post by bobwendt on Apr 19, 2005 5:25:23 GMT -6
you guys are trying to make brain surgery out of a simple thing. chronic diseases sick aged cow the farmer has been treating with whatever for some time, maybe days-weeks-months. Farmers are tighter than the bark on a tree, leave a downer down for 6 months hoping she would come back up before the cheapscates would humanely kill her. So she finally croaks on her own and is a bag of bones , lost 100`s of pounds of mass and basically just a dehydrated gut bag with little muscle mass left, probably tough as shoe leather and layed 1/2 rotted while still alive for a month. So off to the dead pile along with a fat feeder hit by a car or a newborn died at birth. Coyotes eat the newborn first, then pick on the feeder and totally ignore the skinny tough downer cow. Trappers yell MEDICATION, MEDICATION! as they look at the forest and say what tree? I don`t see any trees.
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Post by oso lento on Apr 19, 2005 6:05:10 GMT -6
Bob, you must know my neighbor! I asked him a couple of times if he wanted me too shoot that bull for him! He broke his leg in a praire dog hole while breeding. I would bet he weighed 1\2 of what he weighed to begin with. He has been dead for more than six months now and nothing has touched him. I've seen coyote tracks within 25 yards. As for the medication. We have alot of hogs. We compost all of them. When the coyotes come in it doesn't seem to matter to them if they have been treated or not. We have a sow site and a finisher site about 1 1\2 miles apart. The finisher site has way more coyote problems. This kinda goes along with what bob is saying. The coyotes are going to the better meat and staying away from the old sows.
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Post by trappnman on Apr 19, 2005 6:50:07 GMT -6
Range beef cows- perhaps the scenerio of old and wasted is true- not so on dairy farms. Cows get sent to market long before they are old- if they don't produce good milk and good calves- they are gone. Just clearing that up.
REgarding medication- trying to save a good producing cow- a bunch of medications are going to be tried- who can say if this is a factor or not? Only a coyote. Could be smell, a taste, could be the smell of infection rather than good old rot..who really knows?
I think it simply comes down to food availability and preference.
Perhaps this analogy makes a little sense. In stream trout fishing- night crawlers are much more effective in the spring- because spring floods and high water wash a lot of crawlers into the stream and the trout are USED to eating them. In mid summer- when washed in crawlers are rare...they aren't as effective as bait and a piece an inch long is 100x more productive.
Tests in Colorado showed that trout living on the edges of grassy streams- took every hopper tossed in. But trout living and feeding in the center of wide water- did not- simply becasue they did not recognise the hppers as food.
Point being- coyotes, while opportunistic for sure, are also creatures of habit..and will continue eating they are used to- plus I am sure the hunting aspect and fresh meat is preferred.
I've seen the cow thing in deer. I start water after deer hunting, but lately have been having bare ground for a month or more. Each year, I see 2-3 deer kills along the creeks. Almost without exception- these deer are not fed upon at all- but let us get a bunch of snow- and its a picnic-
they know the deer is there- but prefer other foods if available.
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Post by bobwendt on Apr 19, 2005 7:54:10 GMT -6
dairy cows are kind of nags compared to a fat angus or hereford. we grind most down the road dairy beef into burger as it for the mostr part isn`t fit to eat as steaks and roasts. I imagine coyotes know if it looks like a gut bag it is old and tough. Mt best coyote spots are hog dumps. Hi coyote populations and hard weather the beef dumps are very productive too, but only as last choice on the coyote food pyramid. but but but, they still come and take a whiz and a sniff even if not partaking of a few nibbles.
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Post by mostinterestingmanintheworld on Apr 19, 2005 15:04:51 GMT -6
I know they sure prefer mustangs and deer to cows.
Joel
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Post by trappincoyotes39 on Apr 19, 2005 15:25:52 GMT -6
Bob I'm sorry I'm not biting on the 1-10,000 ratio on 1080 or anything else we have thrown at coyotes since the beginning of time! That would have left the coyote all but extinct during 1080 years and beyond. There is no tool known to man that has an avoidance rate near that good! Many who used 1080 said at the later stages before outlawed, they could see the avoidance of dropped and placed baits by coyotes in a given area, they simply wouldn't touch it, we must ask why? They had the forethought to know anything they didn't kill was bad? I doubt that highly, it had to be some sort of receptor reaction either smell or taste that lead them to bait avoidance, although I wouldn't rule out the fact of too many baits in too small an area as some problems in the later stages as well. Some say deer don't attack round up ready genetically modifed corn near as much as the orignal seed corn fields, why would that be? The deer know it to be geneticlly modified? Or could it be the taste to them is different and less appealing? While I'll agree to coyotes not making beef or other domestics as there top food choices, they will use them to there advantage when needed.
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Post by bobwendt on Apr 19, 2005 16:49:29 GMT -6
tc, the forest and the trees! Did you ever think that in a coyote population devastated by 1080 and say just 1 in 10,000 ( or say 1 in 10 for that matter) left that that 1 in whatever has so much feed available that maybe he eats nothing already dead? Huh, wha he say? On the corn, it is no more different the a man with a 26,462 nose hairs or man with 26,461 nose hairs- both genetically different but they taste the same. The only (ONLY) generic change in round up ready corn is it is resistant to the herbicide "round up" (glyophosphate)- maybe 1 millionth the genetic difference as regular corn and that gene splice only changed its resistance to roundup - notyhing else. That corn talk is just european union crud trying to protect their domestic farmers from u.s. super farmers. everyone knows a swedish ginzu knife is superior to any u.s. made knife! I am joking some so don`t get your dander up, take in the light it is said. The rub with 1080 is it wasn`t put everywhere and coyotes move around a lot from non 1080 areas- but the ones exposed to it , it was near 100% fool proof for the ones there at the time -till the population got so low they wouldn`t take bait anymore ,as fresh hot bunny is better than rancid tallow balls or long dead livestock quarters. Now if we could have figured a way to have the bunnys and mice totye 1080 around we really could have exterminated them.
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Post by musher on Apr 19, 2005 16:58:54 GMT -6
I've seen where black bears wouldn't touch still born calf but the coyotes did.
All this cow talk is reminding me of the time a beef farmer gave me a cow. He popped the carcass in my little toyota. After driving home with the lights pointing skywards I chained it to a tree in my driveway and drove the truck away to unload it. That kind of surprised my wife. It was during a coldspell (-30-35 celsius) and I decided to let it freeze solid. My plan was to use the chainsaw on it once it was frozen. To stop it bloating I punctured its stomach a few times. That kind of surprised my wife, too. It "hissed" for a long time....
After a week or so it looked ready to be cut up. That was a mistake. It didn't freeze. Rather it was rotten by the inside out. I got covered in guts, scrapped a snowmobile suit, and the driveway stunk forever.
Only ravens ate it.
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Post by bblwi on Apr 19, 2005 17:18:11 GMT -6
We may be moderate wimps here in WI but I am sure glad we don't treat our cows and or are farmers don't practice those management practices such as noted here. This last year my 83 dairy farmers had 11,800 cows on their farms which about 200 died and were handled by our dead animal services. About 400 calves and other heifers were also rendering victums. We typically cull about 35% of our dairy herd per year. They are about 95% Holstein. The average live weight of the culled cow on my my farms based on livestock market weight slips is about 1,310 lb. Not big but certainly not skin and bones. That is average so many are above and below. We also have a special animal hospital service that picks up the animals that are less able to take the stress of livestock trailers etc. These animals average about 1,150 as they are more severely ill or have become chronic. Non of these animals can be on medication. Many animals that are medicated are likely recoveries or they are the animals that wind up as the 1-2% death loss. The average cull cow brought the famer about $725 this year they have no interest in allowing these animals to become gut piles or bones from an economic point of view. We have way too much public exposure and high population densities to manage our large livestock anywhere near like what I see described above.
If there is no money in trapping a coyote there certainly is no value in feeding them something that you don't want or need that you can get $700 for.
Bryce
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Post by trappincoyotes39 on Apr 19, 2005 17:25:05 GMT -6
Bob how the corn thing was brought up to me by farmers not EU memebers, they noticed the feeding patterns in both type of fields. On to compund 1080( sodium monofloroacetate) while being very effective from the onset of use, those who used it for years and enforced the laws in which they pertained to use, stated after 20 years of use many of us felt that there was some kind of warning factor immediate reaction caused by the chemical, so that the coyote would not ingest as big as meal as he would have under normal conditions. If the mice would have dined on the carcass they would have bit the dust as well. The best reports showed in areas of a 95% kill of resident coyotes, that would leave 500 out of every 10,000 coyotes still left in the area. Much different than 1 out of 10,000 5% factual versus .0001% on a 1-10,000 deal.
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Post by bobwendt on Apr 19, 2005 18:57:57 GMT -6
well I did pull that 1 in 10,000 out of thin air more as a example than actual number, but 95% should mean extermination levels as genetic diversity and repopulating to normal levels can not be maintained at 5%. It sure was a boon to the red fox in the west, which have by and by gone back to hanger on status as the hidden stashes of 1080 are finally running out. it was great stuff.
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Post by CoonDuke on Apr 20, 2005 18:20:02 GMT -6
I have seen hundreds of cattle die on my dads farm over the years. I have yet to see one not being medicated before death.
Which leads me to believe, if coyotes don't eat medicated dead cattle, they will never eat dead cattle period...because 99% of farmers medicate them before they die!
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Post by trappincoyotes39 on Apr 20, 2005 18:57:57 GMT -6
Coon duke differance in area, out west when there on 2,000-4,000 acres they don't get the daily attention that eastern feedlot or small pasture cows get, they get seen alot during calving, branding and vacinating time otherwise every few days at best there checked up on, they don't get near the attention of eastern livestock, same with sheep some keep them "up" at night and let them out every morning but alot more don't get out to see them daily except for lambing, sheering, marking, docking tails, or vacinated. All sheep in the midwest and eastern states are on small land tracts compaired to out west, thats why by the time some get around to looking at them the coyotes can knock out some numbers, the better the steward the less loss and more prevention can be done.
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Post by bobwendt on Apr 20, 2005 19:05:07 GMT -6
most of the ranchers I am on know the no. of cows with calves after branding and not again till fall when they gather to sell off the calves. On sheep, same way, they count tails after docking or ewes at shearing but then never know how many die or get killed over the summer till fall round up. Most do fly once a week and rather than count live ones they count dead ones visible from the air to get a handle on disease or predator problems. Of course any discrepancy in counts is atttributed to either coyotes or stock ruslers. LOL. They never die from disease , neglect or just plain pee poor management. ;D
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Post by CoonDuke on Apr 21, 2005 18:22:25 GMT -6
TC, Point well taken. I was looking at it with my "eastern mentality"...LOL.
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Post by NEPISIGUIT on Apr 21, 2005 20:55:45 GMT -6
HAD two out on a large farm all winter since the snow came. The only thing that touched them up to my last visit were a couple of raccoons.Bob Went is likely right about yokes having lots of food. Not a hard winter for animals here. By comparrison in November, same farm,same general location two calfs hauled into the edge of a field were totally consumed in two or three days Beats all. Who knows what a coyote thinks and acts like in all situations. Like most animals just about the time you think you have them all figured out some can prove you totally wrong in our thinking. Thats what makes trapping interesting.
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Post by bobwendt on Apr 21, 2005 21:17:56 GMT -6
probably lots of dumb hungry 3/4 grown coyotes around in november that aren`t there anymore after deer season ;D as there arses have been busted.
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Post by NEPISIGUIT on Apr 22, 2005 21:07:30 GMT -6
too true
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