Predators On The Homestead

Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of The Homestead Education. I am super excited for this episode and you’re probably gonna think I’m a huge nerd by, you know, the first couple of minutes of it, but I’m excited. So to get us started this evening, it is very hot in north Idaho.

It’s finally hit us. So I’m recording with my windows open and my kids are outside playing. So if you hear any screeching, they’re fine. Don’t worry. No one’s dying or anything. We’ve talked a little bit about my raised beds. You’re probably starting to be like enough with these raised beds that you’re probably never gonna build but they are all done. And we are getting the dirt this week. My husband just got detained today, so he wasn’t able to go pick it up for me. So hopefully tomorrow our farrowing pens are all ready. So babies any day now. Keep watching social media for pictures. We actually, the family spent the whole weekend out in the yard. It was great. The kids had so much fun. Our yard is so clean, because I do this thing where I say, okay, an hour of weeding and then an hour of play.

They were so worn out, but my yard looked great. I had to write the whole time, but I did it out on the patio and it was just so nice to be outside in the fresh air. I was so alert all day. Didn’t have to caffeine overload to stay nice and locked in on my work. I was loving it this week. The topic depredation on the homestead or predators on the homestead was not actually my original topic. I have a calendar- nobody sees my schedule but me, but I’m kind of a schedule follower. So when I decided to change topics that kind of bothered me. However, I’ve been working on my curriculum, the second version of Homestead Science, the Introduction to Homestead Science for middle school and high schoolers. And I needed to do some research on predators. And I came across the book Encyclopedia Of Predators and I was completely engrossed.

I will link it in the show notes. Hopefully somebody else will get something out of it like I have, but I was so sucked in. In fact I missed almost a whole day of writing because I was so busy just reading this book and that’s because the topic of depredation really calls to me. And I’ll tell you why in a minute. Anyways, though, if you happen to be a mind reader and were patiently awaiting my episode topic of homeschooling a reluctant learner, bribe them with ice cream until my future episode. And maybe I’ll get to that another day and not go off the rails and do something on depredation. Anyways depredation is, when I looked up the definition of it, it is attacking or plundering. And I was actually a little surprised by that because one thing that I’ve always known about depredation is that attacking is kind of a last ditch effort.

So I came up with my own definition, which is the prevention and control of predators, usually as an agricultural necessity. So my history with depredation, I have gotten more than one sideways look, when I say that depredation calls to me or that it’s near to my heart, especially when most people kind of associate it with dead livestock. So let me preface it a little bit. My parents were big game hunters. In fact, they were kind of well known in some of those circles, like in the eighties and that timeframe. And my dad loved hunting. What was most near and dear to his heart, though, was hunting wild pigs. I grew up in the mountains of Northern California. My dad had a cattle ranch there and he hunted every spare second he had. And when I was with him, I hunted with him just as much as he did. Pig hunting is like something that I don’t even know how to describe.

Sometimes I’ve done a lot of hunting in my life and the adrenaline that comes with pig hunting is amazing. I guess I can understand why some people skydive, which you would never see me jumping out of a plane, but I think there’s a lot of people that you would never see pig hunting. So I think we’re even on that one. When my dad retired, he sold his sandblasting company and he opened a hunting guide business. And actually one of his first contracts was for depredation of wild pigs on a big ranch that had vineyards because these pigs can just be super detrimental to vineyards. And some of the hogs we got off there were, I mean, we got a boar that probably was pushing five or 600 pounds and that’s a safety to workers at that point as well to have a wild animal of that size, potentially getting spooked when they’re working the vineyards.

So this was when I was about 20. I spent the next five years or so guiding pig hunts and bass fishing trips with my dad every weekend. It was some of the best times I’d had. And when I went back to college, the times I spent with my dad kind of became the topic of many of my writing assignments, both fictional and research. I guess not fictional. I wrote a few stories that highlighted my dad and I mean, he’s was a different type of person. And I think I’ve mentioned before in my podcast that they just don’t make men like him anymore. So I definitely used him to paint the picture of somebody that demands respect. Anyways, my research papers, I actually published one of my essays about reopening mountain lion hunting in California. And then my senior paper in college in my ag writing class was actually on wild pig depredation, definitely kind of an outside of the box topic, but it was something that I could actually really get passionate about reading this book over the weekend.

I learned some really interesting facts. I think my husband was kind of getting bored with me and you can probably hear the baby squealing at this point because he’s playing with the dog in the backyard. And anyways, I was probably annoying my husband this weekend because every time I read something super exciting, I was like, babe, babe, did you know? So I’m gonna give you guys some of my did you knows when American colonists first came to the United States, they had essentially eradicated large predators in Britain and their main predators were foxes. So when they got to America, they immediately got to work eradicating the large predators here, like wolves, bears, mountain lions through hunting and poisoning almost to the point of extinction. In fact, the first bounty on wolves was set in 1620. I mean, let’s see it’s 2022 right now. So 400 years ago, the first bounty on wolves was set in the United States.

This ended up leading to a huge overpopulation in coyotes because there were no other large predators to stop them. And the population of coyotes now at this point are in the thousands. Well, I mean, probably even more than that, because every year thousands are being dispatched without even affecting their populations. Overpopulation is something that has to be addressed, not just with coyotes, but with some other animals and many people that are against hunting, they need to become well versed in this issue because with the reduction in predators and this includes human hunting regulations, there are places that have had issues with overpopulation of deer and other prey animals. And this ends up causing starvation and disease, even with fish and game biologists suggestions and fish and game controls. Overpopulation is still something that they are constantly trying to balance in the early 1900s.

Conservationists like Theodore Roosevelt our president who was an avid hunter and the Sierra Club started pushing for regulations on the control of these predators in a more sustainable way and actually protecting some of them against hunting so that they could, the large predators could repopulate and start balancing out some of these over populations and under populations. Why is depredation a thing today? It’s because people have expanded into their territory and it’s as simple as that. People have animals as pets and livestock for agriculture and something that a lot of people don’t realize is predators are also considered deer and birds that can be destructive to crops. That’s actually how I got my start with the pigs who are actually omnivores, destroying vineyards that can take years to start producing. And I am not talking about a little rooting, which is what the pigs do with their nose and dig up the dirt.

This is actually herds of a couple hundred pigs taking out acres of crops in one night. We’ve also in the past, had contracts on pigs that were eating lambs during lambing season. Wild pigs are a much bigger problem than a lot of people realize, especially if they don’t live in an area that they, well, I guess they’re not native to anywhere, but where their populations are expanding and they’re moving, they’re coming into areas that haven’t had pigs before. Now these animals, they don’t know any different, a wild deer versus a sheep in a field is no different to a coyote except for one is in a fence and a little easier to catch. They are doing what is natural to them. We have to find ways of mitigating that that is not just eradication. Let’s go over some types of predators because there’s a lot.

The first type is canines, which includes wolves, coyotes, and foxes. The next is felines and that’s mountain lions or cougars, bobcats, panthers, lynx, ocelots. Bears, there’s grizzly bears, black bears, brown bears, the Kodiak brown bear, which is actually what I was named after Kody. A lot of people think it was like Cody, Wyoming or something, but no, my parents went bear hunting on the Kodiak islands. And that is how I got my name, and polar bears. Then there’s the weasel, which includes wolverines, fishers, badgers, weasels, of course, minks and martens, raccoons, skunks, possums, which possums are immune to Lyme disease and eat ticks. So they’re kind of good. As long as you can keep them outta your chickens. Domestic and feral animals, which include dogs, cats, and pigs. We’ve already covered pigs a lot, but dogs and cats can actually be huge predators on homesteads.

Not necessarily like your own dogs, but like neighbor dogs coming in and attacking livestock or even feral dogs. It’s an issue. The next one is birds. Usually the predator birds like hawks, eagles, owls, but when it comes to crops, really all birds are an issue, especially some of the grains. And then there’s deer, elk, moose, rabbits, those are all detrimental to crops. So at this point, we’re actually gonna get into talking about depredation. There are two categories: lethal and non lethal, and really you wanna try for non-lethal options first and layering a few of those before turning to the lethal options. However, lethal is still a very solid option, especially when dealing with overpopulated animals like coyotes and wild pigs.

So examples of some non-lethal are fencing. There’s tons of different types of fencing. And it really just depends on how much an investment you wanna make and what type of animals you’re trying to contain. So with chickens, I mean, you definitely just want to have them completely contained at night, make sure they are locked up. Of course they can still get taken out by an eagle or a hawk during the day when they’re out free ranging. And there are ways to deal with that. Again, that’s where the layering comes in, because fencing’s gonna handle it during the day, but having possibly a livestock guardian animal, or fencing’s gonna contain them at night and a livestock guardian animal can help with alerting to predator birds during the day. But I’m skipping ahead a little bit with fencing. There’s a couple different types that will help with depredation.

If you have goats or sheep, you’re probably doing some pretty secure fencing anyways, but an option is adding the hot wire along the top, which will deter coyotes and animals like that. That kind of have to climb the fence as they jump over. Another one is called coyote rollers or something. And basically it’s a piece of PVC pipe on a wire at the top of the fence. So the wire goes through the PVC pipe, so when the coyote tries to climb up it, they actually hit it and it rolls and it knocks ’em back down. I don’t know that that would completely deter them, but it might buy time for one of the other things to kick in like a dog or the farmer rancher, hearing the commotion and being able to get out there.

Another one is with the pigs and anything else that’ll burrow, you need to have fencing that goes into the ground. That’ll stop them from digging under. So like in chicken coops, having it go underground with some gardens, you might want to consider that to keep the pigs out if you live in a pig area. That’ll also help with rabbits. 

The next one is using a livestock guardian animal. Generally that’s dogs. There’s farm dogs and livestock guardian dogs. And they have two different roles, but with a livestock guardian animal, they will bark or bray or honk to alert the animals of a threat in the area or to alert the owners who can hear and get out there and help. Donkeys and llamas will actually fight off a coyote as long as there’s not too many in the pack. So they can actually protect their flock that way. Now with dogs, this sometimes can be a lethal category as well. That’s not the goal. Hopefully with the dogs, just simply having a dog there is gonna deter predators. Livestock, guardian dogs will actually mark their territory all the way around the fencing. If a predator comes into the area they’ll bark at ’em first, then charge ’em then try to chase ’em and lastly they’ll attack. And sometimes that can end up being lethal, but that’s not the goal with that one. Also just having other farm dogs, they sometimes will have similar roles. They’ll do the barking if there’s a predator in the area, or if their livestock guardian dog starts sounding off. Other farm dogs will go to help. That can be very beneficial. That’s again, where it shows the layering to keep your animals safe and fencing.

It isn’t just about building fences. It’s about where you have the animals during different times of the day. So bringing them in at night where they’re closer to barns or other buildings or the house, also not having them in the same pastures all the time, that will make it where any predators that see patterns, especially like coyotes. They’ll have to actually look for the animals. So it makes it a little harder. Back to the layering is you have the fence and then the dogs and then backup dogs. And sometimes there’s other deterrents there such as horns, motion lights, flashers, a scarecrow, bear spray, pepper spray, those types of things. Some of them are set up with fencing. Some of ’em are the owners, once they’re alerted, will come out and set those off. So then that brings me into trapping, which is usually a non-lethal option, but can still be lethal as well.

And that’s where the animal is trapped in either a small trap or a snare type trap, and then relocated. This can be done by the homeowner. The landowner traps, you can either get ’em at hunting or feed supply stores. You can also, in some areas, rent traps from the department of fish and game. And then if you’re dealing with a larger animal or a more dangerous animal, there are state trappers that are hired by the department of fish and game to come out and handle those larger animals. Again, this is supposed to be non-lethal. Sometimes the animals get injured in the traps. Sometimes once you catch ’em, you see that they’re diseased or extremely aggressive and sometimes lethal options need to be used. 

Then that brings me into actual lethal options. The first one is hunting. Any hunting is regulated by the states, and that is so that we can help with that population control. They offer more tags or permits to be able to hunt additional animals if there’s more animals or they reduce the number of tags that they sell. If the animal populations are starting to reduce. And sometimes that can change from year to year, just based completely on food sources and how cold the winters were and things like that. If there’s a depredation or a predator issue, then at that point, landowners can reach out to the department of fish and game and they can get additional permits called depredation permits that allow for additional hunting. With this type of depredation, the meat is usually eaten by the landowner or can be donated. There’s a lot of programs for donating deer meat and other common meats that are eaten to food banks. However, sometimes if it’s an animal that wouldn’t normally be eaten like a coyote or a wolf, then the animal will just be dispatched and the carcass is buried or some ranchers they’ll hang coyotes on the fence so that other coyotes see ’em there. And hopefully that’s a deterrent for them as well. 

Sometimes the tails of these animals or the hides need to be turned into the department of fishing game as part of their tracking method. Another lethal one is poison. Now you have to be careful with this one because if your livestock guardians can get to the poison, or if you’re using the poisons in the barn for rodents and you have barn cats, you have to be really careful with that one. However, there are ones that are placed outside of fencing or have certain baits. I don’t really like the idea of poisons, but they do work with the laws and regulations. I covered that a little bit when talking about hunting, however, pretty much with any form of depredation, it needs to be ran through the department of fish and game for the most part.

Now with fencing, most people think, well, it’s just a fence, but there are places where there’s deer migrations where the deer need to actually be able to get under the fence or over the fence. So it can’t be a certain level or they can’t be permanent fencing, so they can be taken down during migration times, anything that involves trapping of the larger animals, the hunting, the dispatching, the poisoning that all needs to be permitted through the department of fish and game. Most of the time it’s important to look at your local state laws and see what is allowed because it might be different in every state and I’m going on the states that I’ve lived in. However, it’s an emergency situation. You go out and there’s an animal in the middle of attacking your animals or trying to attack you, go ahead and dispatch it usually, however you see fit and then contact the department of fish and game. I know in the area that I live in, grizzlies are federally protected species and pretty much they have to be attacking a human for it to be okay for them to be killed. You still need to contact fish and game, keep their records and do research of animal movement areas in your area. So it’s really important to just keep in touch with them on any of the major depredation things that you’re doing. If you have an animal that is continuously attacking your stock and you have used all of these methods, and you’re still not able to stop that, this is when you definitely get like the game warden involved. They might be called something different in your state. I call it the department of fish and game.

I think in some states it’s game and fish or department of wildlife, basically you get in touch with them and they’ll come out and that’s when they get the trappers involved or they’ll end up dispatching an animal when you’re doing this and you’re having them come out and check. If possible, don’t touch it because they need to be able to investigate now for your safety. If there’s an animal, a wild animal on your property, be careful. You don’t wanna get attacked. They carry all sorts of diseases, including rabies. So just be really careful and call the authorities when necessary. What attacked your animal? This is a huge topic. Like I said, it’s basically a crime scene investigation. Now this isn’t a full guide because there are tons of variables and regional considerations. And there’s lots of resources out there, like the book that I mentioned and state resources online, but I’d like to give you some things to look at a note for your further research or when you’re reporting it to state wildlife.

First of all, what size animal did they kill? A fox probably didn’t take down one of your cows. And unless the whole side of your chicken coop was ripped off, it probably wasn’t a bear that slipped through the loose board on your chicken coop. Now, if there’s wing marks or a missing bird, it was probably a hawk or an eagle. Now one tricky one is raccoons can actually open latches. So if you go to your barn and there’s chickens missing or killed or maimed, and the door is open, there’s a really good chance that that was a raccoon. Now, skunks, they’re jerks besides just stinking. They’re known to sometimes just eat the heads off of chickens and rabbits and leave the rest, which is so wasteful. If you’re gonna eat, eat it, just eat it. Now, something else to note is how were your livestock accessed. Were they in a fence or a pen? Was it a fence that a larger animal would have to jump over to get into that area?

Check for tracks. Now remember the age and the gate of the animal can leave a different appearance, but definitely wanna check the length and the width of any tracks. And remember that cats will retract their claws where bears and canines don’t. So you’ll actually, in their tracks, you can see their claw marks. Feces, if they left any feces behind, the contents can help determine if they are carnivore, omnivore, or herbivore. So, I mean, if there’s hair in it or berries or a combination of both that can definitely narrow down what type of animal was on your property. Next, you wanna see what the wound looks like. Was the animal eaten or was it maimed? So like I mentioned, the skunks will just eat heads off. A lot of times neighboring dogs will just kill animals for sport where wolves will eat the innards first. Was the animal attacked from different angles? Some animals hunt in packs, so if there’s bite marks on the head and the legs that could indicate that they were hunting in a pack like coyotes. The next one is, are there clean cuts or tears? A cat with their claws, they can do those clean cuts where a canine is gonna be ripping flesh.

The next one is, this one’s a little graphic, but I think it’s important, is knowing whether or not, if they killed a calf or a lamb, was it a newborn or a stillborn? So a stillborn animal will sometimes have a film on ’em. And if you do a necropsy, which is where you actually open up and investigate the animal, the lungs will be brown, cuz they don’t have any oxygen in ’em yet. Now the reason that that’s important is because a stillborn animal may have been eaten by a more opportunistic predator, such as the pigs that come by. Pigs don’t always attack lambs, but they’ll eat the stillborn ones, whereas if it was alive, a lot of times that’s usually more of a coyote. 

The next one is the time of year,. Some predators have babies in the spring and they’ve been hibernating. That can kind of give you an idea of what animal it is.The next one is if it’s the middle of winter, it’s probably not a bear because they’re hibernating. It’s a higher chance that it was a wolf or a mountain lion. Overall, every type of predator that I mentioned has an important role in our ecosystem. I’m not necessarily for or against any one type. I did mention, I don’t love the poisoning, but it has its place too, but some are more effective than others. And depending on how aggressive you wanna be in your budget, I wanna leave you with a quote from John Jackson that says there can be no stewardship without stewards and an homage of my childhood, I’d like to give a quote by Theodore Roosevelt that says in a civilized and cultivated country, wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen. If you need help putting together a depredation plan for your small farm or homestead, follow the link in the show notes for a homestead business strategy call to see if this service is right for you.

Remember to join the Homestead Education group on Facebook to teach others and to learn yourself. If you’re waiting impatiently for the middle and high school version of Homestead Science, be sure to sign up for the wait list for any updates and early bird discounts. 

This episode of the Homestead Education is brought to you by Lehman’s Hardware, your one-stop homesteading supply store that ships all over the United States.

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