Coyotes in Rural King County (Seattle, Auburn: houses, neighborhood, wedding)

[bigtrees]

I currently live in the city of Auburn but will move to the rural parts of King County in the next year or two.

Last night, I awoke to the sounds of coyotes howling. I've heard them before in the distance - but last night they sounded like they were on my front lawn! It was incredibly loud and incredibly close. I assume they got a rabbit or neighborhood cat and were feeling pretty good about it.

I'm wondering - what do the rural landowners in King County do to protect themselves and their livestock and farm animals against coyotes? I've read online about keeping your pets inside at all times, but that's not really practical for a rural landowner that will spend most of his time outside. I also wish to own some farm animals and am concerned for their safety as well.

I appreciate any information you can provide.

[azoria]

I live in west Seattle and we've seen them strolling down the sidewalk.

Coyotes have proliferated since they no longer have predators here higher on the food chain. I believe it is illegal to poison them (and well it should be).

When we used to raise livestock we used donkeys as guard animals. They hate dogs and coyotes, and will protect their fellow livestock. Animals must be put away at night.

However we did lose a lot of cats.....

[seattlerain]

Perhaps this will be of some help:

Washington Department of fish and Wildlife|Living with Wildlife|Coyotes

[mayfair]

Livestock guardian dogs are another option people use. These dogs are bonded to the animals they guard and not house pets.

Locking up smaller animals is necessary.

[allforcats]

Originally Posted by mayfair

Livestock guardian dogs are another option people use. These dogs are bonded to the animals they guard and not house pets.

Like Great Pyrennes dogs. I know three who live, eat and sleep with a small herd of goats on the Olympic Peninsula. Seriously large, muscular, very intelligent dogs really focused on who they let in, or don't let in, to visit the goats. They protect the goats, and the goats "belong" to the dogs and obey the dogs.

[509]

Originally Posted by bigtrees

I currently live in the city of Auburn but will move to the rural parts of King County in the next year or two.

Last night, I awoke to the sounds of coyotes howling. I've heard them before in the distance - but last night they sounded like they were on my front lawn! It was incredibly loud and incredibly close. I assume they got a rabbit or neighborhood cat and were feeling pretty good about it.

I'm wondering - what do the rural landowners in King County do to protect themselves and their livestock and farm animals against coyotes? I've read online about keeping your pets inside at all times, but that's not really practical for a rural landowner that will spend most of his time outside. I also wish to own some farm animals and am concerned for their safety as well.

I appreciate any information you can provide.

Well, we are not from King County but eastern Washington. Cats are a preferred food for coyote's. I believe most coyote's will go the extra mile just for that tasty taste of cat.

That said your cats are fortunate that you are in King County. Trees provide a handy and quick escape route for cats. Here in the sage, being caught out in the open means that cat becomes breakfast. It goes quickly all you hear in the panic call of the cat and then silence.

We are not cat people, but if you live in a rural area you need to have them around just to reduce the mice population. If you rather not live with mice in the house, you will have a cat.

What we ended up doing is getting cats in the found column of the paper. That way if the coyote's get them your not out much money. We found that they generally hang around for six months or so before the coyote's nail them.

Then we finally get a cat that is coyote savy. One lived for 18 years. Our current cat is going on 5 years from the found column in the paper. In between, we went through 10 cats in a couple of years.

Never had a problem with our dogs. They all were fairly large hunting breeds however.

[jinj]

We have coyotes in our area too, I love watching them, they chase the rabbits in our yard.
They do hunt in packs and will kills cats/dogs/chicken/sheep, anything smaller than them.

They will also kill large dogs, our outside dog run is all fenced in, sides and top. They will climb into kennels and kill large dogs. I know of a German Shepherd owner in Pierce county that lost her 120 pound dog to coyotes, it was trapped.

If you have outside pets, have multiple, several dogs or several cats, they will help each other.
Have a donkey or lama to protect your sheep or goats.

I only have one dog, but shes only outside when supervised, she does a problem with chasing them though, they lure dogs in so that the pack can kill them.

We need wolves back in this area.

We are hearing a lot of the Elk calls now!

[LMB]

Originally Posted by allforcats

Like Great Pyrennes dogs. I know three who live, eat and sleep with a small herd of goats on the Olympic Peninsula. Seriously large, muscular, very intelligent dogs really focused on who they let in, or don't let in, to visit the goats. They protect the goats, and the goats "belong" to the dogs and obey the dogs.

AFC, I sent your post to my son & daughter-in-law who live in Orlando. They have a beautiful Great Pyrenees too. He's such a sweetheart, but I bet he'd be a good "goat guarder" too! They are in love with the Olympic Peninsula, so I knew they'd enjoy reading your post. By the way, their Great Pyrenees was the ring bearer in their wedding last Oct. He did a wonderful job and looked so stately in his black bow tie!

Lynn

[acninee]

QUOTE:"Then we finally get a cat that is coyote savy. One lived for 18 years. Our current cat is going on 5 years from the found column in the paper. In between, we went through 10 cats in a couple of years. "

Surely you can think of a way to protect your cats. Running through them until you find a few who are 'coyote savy' is irresponsible and cruel. If you need the to control vermin outside of your house and barn, at least bring them into your home at night. Though since coyotes are present, and since coyotes eat rodents, perhaps it would make sense to consider keeping the cats as indoor creatures and allowing the coyotes to act as rodent control outside the house.

Meanwhile I hope persons who want to place their kittens or cats in safe homes will ask some questions and that you answer with complete honesty. I would not want to risk placing a kitten with you if I had any to place.

[texastrigirl]

Coyotes, black bears, cougars...we've had 'em all in Sammamish often sighted at our elementary school crosswalk during school hours. Especially fun when the black bear crossed in the crosswalk right after school let out! You can hear the coyotes howl at night and we had a cougar about 5 houses down from us at 4:30pm as our kids were outside playing. Yikes!