IADeerHunter16

I've lived on a farm all of my life and have never seen a coyote kill a calf and was wondering if it does actually happen. I've heard neighbors claim that coyotes have killed their calves, but I'd say what really happened was they don't check them very often and had one die naturally and coyotes did what was natural for a scavenger and ate it. I've heard of them killing sheep and that seems like it could easily happen, but a cow just isn't going to let a coyote near its calf.

Red Hawk

I actually have a experience that hopefully will answer that question. Back several months ago when I was at my girlfriend's house (now ex), for a few nights - She lived pretty close to a farm where there were several cows and calves. The owners weren't there for several days at a time so not sure whom was suppose to watch. There was one particular calve that my then-gf liked. I woke up in middle of night to sounds of cows freaking out. I didn't think much of it so went back to sleep. I took her kids to school so she could sleep in and noticed what was left of the calf in middle of the field; I was curious on to what happened to it and I noticed drag marks as well as several coyote tracks (appeared to be anyway).

halcon

If the cow stays with the calf there usually isn't a problem ,but occasionallycoyoteswill kill newborn calves when they are left alone . Cattle have a habit of hiding their young calves out when they are first born .

TROPHYHUNTER25

it happens here in idiana alot but tha calf has to be left alone

Howler

Certainly not ALL coyotes are calf killers, BUT it seems that those that learn to do it, keep doing it until they pay the ultimate price for it.
I know a farmer in KS. that would never let coyote hunters on his property until he had an incident where he caught the coyotes in the act of killing a calf. It happened at night, and he heard the cow raising cain out in his pasture, so he went to check on it and found that the coyotes hadn't killed the calf yet, but had already started on it, stripped its tail and had bite marks on the hind quarters, and the cow was so worked up that she wouldn't hardly let the farmer near the calf. BUT the farmer took the calf to the house to doctor it and keep it in the house over night and planned on taking the calf back to the cow in the morning. Well, when he went out the next morning, he found the cow dead and partially eaten.
Not one coyote does such a thing, but a pack of them can handle full grown cows, deer, etc. He called my cousin that very day and when we hunted his home section and three adjoining sectionswe caught 7 coyotes with the grey hounds. Didn't catch all that we saw, BUT he never lost another calf that winter and we get to hunt his land every winter now.

falcon

Coyotes kill a lot of calves as they are being born.The cow is helpless during birth, the coyote knows this and starts eatingon the calf's head.

Kill those coyotes.

IADeerHunter16

I figured that they could and you guys have given me proof of that. I'm not against killing coyotes I just wondered if the bad image they have gotten was true. That story of one killing a cow really shocked me, but I'd say she gave birth that night and was probably really drained from it? I'm going to have to work on my coyote calling I think I may have lost a dog to them.

RLoving1

Yotes will work on domestic dogs real fast! They will play with them and lure a single dog away from home then gang up on them...enless you have some good working pairs of hounds.My brother had two Blue heelers that would play along with a coyote,one would hang back then sneak up at the right time and they were some fighting suckers,if no yotes to mess with they would sit around and fight one another for fun!

Jim_IV

they only kill our dairy calves if the cow leaves them for an extended period of time. other than that they just eat the afterbirth

IADeerHunter16

RLoving1 thats what my dog was. Another odd thing is our other dog that never ran and was excellent with cattle disapeared a couple of months later. The first dog was only a year and a half old and was already good, but I wonder if he wasn't stolen by mistake. The two dogs were almost impossible to tell apart even for me. I've got two new pups in training right now. I hate the thought of replacing them, but our farm just can't opperate without a good dog.