RE: [Homesteadingfamily] Newbie w/ coyote problem!

I think the answer is definitely to get more dogs...OR...get one of those livestock guardian dogs, we have Caucasion Owfcharka's and our female used to run a good mile or more to get her coyote...always came back with a mouth full of fur. They don't call them Wiley Coyotes in the cartoons for nothing...they are and I hate them!

Wendy Chartrand...WAGON CREEK FARM...Box 120, Oak Point, Mb., R0C 2J0 Canada

To: Homesteadingfamily@yahoogroups.com
From: pinehavenfarm7@yahoo.com
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2011 00:35:37 +0000
Subject: [Homesteadingfamily] Newbie w/ coyote problem!

Hello All,
I'm new here by several weeks, Hello Everyone! Our family has been busy with a move to our new farm and getting a garden in for the year. We are in the Appalachian mountains~very beautiful, but very remote.
My question is about Coyotes. We haven't had to deal with them before, but we are having to deal with them now. I've had 2 wonderful mousers/barn cats go missing over the course of one month. Last week while putting our garden in, I was alone up on the hill and heard something I thought of as a strange growl in the forest over from where I was working. I straightened up and took a stronger hold of my hoe, and looked over at our Collie who was napping under a tree. He never woke up or moved, so I assumed I was hearing things, and went back to work. I did not hear it again.
Day before yesterday morning, I was first one out to go feed the dogs and cats in the early morning hours. The putrid smell of urine, about a thousand times magnified, hit me as I opened up the kitchen door. It was so powerful, I could hardly breathe. It seemed to permeate the whole backyard. It was not skunk, but something really equally bad. By lunchtime, the sun had burned off the smell as the dew dried off the grass.
We are pretty sure this is the work of Coyotes. I had not ordered my chickens yet or purchased our goats, we'd been so busy for the last two weeks, and now I'm glad we haven't, until we can get this under control.
Can anyone offer any advice or recommendations? I was thinking of using solar electric fence around my livestock areas, and getting more dogs up here on the farm.
Thank you,
Melanie

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