To shoot em or not??

[ALLFARMER]

We have lost several calves to bears this year.
Likely lost some before hunters baited and
arrowed a big blonde one this spring. Just looking
for ideas on how to deal with this. Likely I need to
buy a bigger gun and become a bear hunter.
Who's with me??

[gaucho]

Maybe have cows that look after their calves better... didn't you just calve have all heifers... Touch wood the only thing that has predated calves here over the years was the odd wolf and some nasty coyotes but we got that dealt with.

[ALLFARMER]

Ya Doc nearly all young stuff.

Coyotes we make meat balls for and they go
away. Lost a few calves couple years back to
them.

[ALLFARMER]

Interesting Barley past your place Doc.....looks
like it flooded out then dried out and burned. Can't
be much in those heads. Flooded and Dried out
all in one year.

Glad I am not grain farming anymore, input bills
around the necks of allot of guys here this year.
Lots of young guys wanting to be big working out
to pay crop bills....that gets guys thinking wtf

[15444]

If you have deer handy, shoot one of them and poison it. Not sure how your wildlife guys will take it, but around here, anything that isn't domesticated is a 'nuisance animal' by my standards and is free game 24/7/365. Anyone balks and the hand gets outstretched for compensation, whether it be for the miles of fence that has to be fixed, the hay eaten or the cattle lost to predation, plus my time and opportunity lost.

I know one neighbour that has about 65 deer around his house/fields beside a relatively busy highway at any time of the day and the MNR has told him that as a farmer he is allowed to do what he wishes with 'nuisance deer'; just don't ask them to do anything about it. He doesn't have a clear/safe shot in any direction, so his options are limited.

[ALLFARMER]

15444

What could I use for poison? For Coyotes I get
from the County....free even.

[15444]

Rat/mice poison works. Have heard that fly bait works. I know one popular method is filling hotdogs with anti-freeze. Of course you could just leave a bowl a hot dogs and a bowl of anti-freeze and let nature do the work.

Anti-freeze will lead to a slow, agonizing death and you better make sure that none of the neighbor dogs will get into it, because they will make it back to their owners before they die.

[ASRG]

Is there something wrong with this conversation? Rat poison/fly poison/ antifreeze?
I'm sure glad I don't live close to you guys!

[15444]

Probably not. And there would be people who would say it's not a humane way for an animal to die. But I have pictures of a bred heifer I lost last August to a bear. Bear grabbed her hindquarters, pulled down and ripped her guts open. The heifer walked/dragged herself almost a quarter mile out of the bush and died. Can you imagine walking to death with your guts trailing behind you? Something The Mob would do!

Definitely not a humane way to die and all I have to think about is that heifer and all 'humane' thinking is out the window.

[ALLFARMER]

THANKS 15444

Have to try that

[gaucho]

We snare Coyotes and that minimizes any collateral kills... I hate Poison, way to many other things out there that get into it.... Lesson learned well after we had to set poison to get the pair of wolves this spring that got 2 yearlings and a cow... there were many dead ravens, magpies and coyotes that died along the way and not something that we are very proud of.

[Burbert]

Shoot, shovel, and shudup. "Alberta
motto"