If you have cattle you have coyotes

[Deleted]

I’ve read this quote many times but nobody has really explained the reasoning behind it so someone please explain it to me. When you do please be specific and quantify it with acreage and cattle numbers, size of feed lots and dead piles exposed or buried or composted in barn yard or compost in the back of a section, etc

[trappnman]

sure-

I'll speak of what I know best, my farms around here.

I do believe that coyotes have an innate attraction to cows- eons of following bovine herds makes this genetically ingrained. And probably for the same reasons as today. Food.

Food in 2 ways-1) the farming practices that go into raising cows, and 2) the incidental food that cows provide.

All farms with cows are not equal. I have several big dairies that I don't trap, even though they see an occasional coyote, because there is no off season habitat. The farms I'm talking about have habitat (even the stockyards I trapped in KS had habitat), and habitat here means hills and coulees. the dairies range in size from 150 at the small end, to upwards of 1000 on the high end. Very few 20-30 ones around. As far as acreages, hard to tell cause all the big ones rent land. So total of farmers rent/own...some 1000+, most 350-600 I'd say. but in between the big dairies are all the guys that now raise calves or finish them for the big guys...so hard to tell. but not 10 acre lots or anything like that.

1) you need hay, you need corn, you need to do something with manure. So you have mixed crops. And hay is dominate. So you have that crop mix, you have the corn providing seasonal habitat, and thus you have habitat that allows easy living for coyotes. Hay is cut 5 or 6 times a year proving easy hunting. In addition, there is ruff stuff. Now, you would think that cows then are just an afterthought, meaning that good habitat will have coyotes. Yes, and no. Remember, we want them there regular, not just wandering by. so that brings us to the second, and maybe most important aspect- the incidental food provided by cows.

2) Having cows, produces both by-products and inventory so to speak. cows in pastures, stir things up. High grass eaten, stuff trampled down- mice, voles etc on the move. In addition, coyotes glean things from manure, and will eat off of cow patties, and often follow manure wagons as well doing the same. Manure piles are good attraction points for the same reason.

and if you raise cows, esp dairy, you are going to have dead ones. Some have the old fashioned mentioned dead pile- and those are typically in the back forty, and get worked all season- where I get my skulls from. But fewer of those, more common is the compost pile- and thats often right close to the barns and buildings. Coyotes work compost piles same as dead piles. I have 1 farm that has a dead shed. 4 bays, open on 1 side, roof- coyotes work that quite well-

And I mentioned inventory- by that I mean hay and silage storage. Hay stacks, esp old hay yards with deteriorating bales on one side, are hotspots, as are silage piles if located right.

So cows provide a somewhat stable off season food source.

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so its twofold- cows and the farming practices that go with them- you can't have one without the other.

[Griz]

Good explanation.

These concepts also apply to beef cow/calf and feedlot operations.