36 Our Advertisers Appreciate Your Business Better Farming | October 2024 Livestock 1-800-665-0470 www.goodon.com Experience Built In. Pioneers in the Post-Frame Construction Industry Shops • Machine Sheds • Acreage Buildings • Riding Arenas • Commercial food. They will spend 24/7 working on finding weak spots in your system,” says O’Brien. “We recommend to producers to always have a backup plan for when predation happens, and it isn’t a one-off. Have a local trapper on your contact list.” The trapper will need experience catching coyotes, and they often need to be caught in the summer rather than winter. The ability to set traps which can be left and work on their own is a benefit of the trapping approach. With hunting, the hunter will often need to spend multiple days or evenings waiting for the coyote to return, or use hounds, which may be less effective in the summer. “There is a reason to trap,” says O’Brien, emphasizing that producers remember the mating and hunting behaviour of coyotes. “Research has been done in coyotes, and most often the adult pair involved in the majority of livestock kills. If you remove the two adults who claim the territory on your farm, very often the predation stops. Yearlings in that unit may continue to maintain the territory, or a new pair may move in. You just have to hope that those that move in aren’t livestock killers.” Non-Lethal Deterrents If a farm does not yet have an active predation problem, deterrents can help. Fencing, reinforced thresholds, lights, noises, and animal trackers can help to monitor and discourage livestock and wildlife conflict. Predators quickly learn from experience, and these deterrents may not be long-term solutions. “At one point, we believed five-strand high tensile electric fence would be good enough to keep predators out of yards, but as coyotes became accustomed to them, their effectiveness dropped,” says O’Brien. “Coyotes as a predator are very determined and learn very well. “As livestock producers across the province put up electric fence, coyotes were exposed much more frequently and figured out ways to get through it.” Now, the gold standard for fencing would be an exclusionary perimeter fence at least 5.5 feet high with the bottom wire right to the ground. O’Brien adds that gates and ditches become predator entry points with these fences. Hawkshaw explains that Topsy Farms has created a multi-step approach to keep a secure perimeter fence and reduce conflict. “Before my time here, around 20 to 25 years ago, we added a page-wire perimeter fence to our lambing ground. It significantly reduced hits during lambing, but there were still some pretty heavy hit years,” says Hawkshaw. “Around four years ago, we implemented a non-lethal
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