Mon, 20 Oct 2003

Coyotes

Quite a bit of excitement this morning around four: we had slept with the bedroom window open just a crack for the wonderful October night air, and were rudely awakened by the howling of coyotes!

All of us (Willie included, of course) were out of bed in an instant: Kris threw on her clothes, grabbed her rifle and raced to the barnlot - Willie was barking to beat Hel - we left him inside though for fear he'd end up somewhere he shouldn't be.

Meanwhile, I vainly attempted to get dressed - and have decided that that one pair of "34 slim" jeans I have is now on the dustbin of my closet, until I lose some more weight. Do not try to put on very tight pants with a full bladder! It's a recipie for near disaster!

I finally managed to get some britches on, and walked the main pasture "spotting" while Kris covered me. Didn't see anything, and the livestock were seemingly pretty calm (until we come trapsing through their padock at 4 in the morning of course) so the coyote activity must have been further away than we suspected. But it's still pretty nerve racking...

Kris just returned from purchasing 5 new Blackfaced ewes in Iowa on Saturday - the owner wanted to sell the entire flock because of a coyote problem. I sure hope the new girls aren't jinxed! We hadn't seen a coyote since Kris shot on in July, and, honestly, I prefer it that way.

I still think that coyotes got at least some of the barn cats in last years "barn cat debacle", and I know they got at least two chickens. I don't want to lose a ewe or (next spring) a lamb to the little hunters: let them eat rodents and moles and they can live in perfect peace! But if they show up here after my livestock, we'll force feed'em some more lead.

Of course, the other real danger with an exploding coyote population is their tendency to mingle and cross breed with the dogs that wonderful city folks come out here and dump rather than taking to a shelter. This produces a larger, more vicious predator that's called (around here) a "coy-dog" - these have been known to down sheep for fun (they kill but don't feed) and have been reported to attack humans - one little girl near Shelbyville, IN was killed by a pack of these beasts several years ago while riding her bike down a dusty country road.

It's a real challenge trying to strike a balance in all this: I don't want to kill coyotes "just because", but on the other hand I'm worried that if I don't, I'll be contributing to real trouble down the road. I won't poison or bait trap them - I have a real problem with chemical weapons of any sort. I use fly papaer in the barn as opposed to sprays and chemicals, and cats as opposed to warfin for rat and rodent control.

The llama has more or less bonded with the sheep - he should be some help against coyotes, too. As should the donkey (Mouse). It's just an ongoing battle, and the deeper I get into farming, the more I understand the precarious balance we must maintain if we are to survive, let alone thrive, on this planet. We've ignored it for far too long in the West (as in civilization, not geographic area of the US), and it's slowly but surely coming back to bite us in the ass.

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