It’s been a week, so far. The equine vet was out yesterday. Irish has a bad bruise on his sole. Peanut is possibly insulin-resistant and will need to be put on a dry lot, so I’m going to have to make a small paddock for him. He’s getting small lamanitic episodes when the grass gets too lush.
This morning Wylie the german shepherd looked very beat up. I thought maybe one of my other dogs went after him, although they seem to get along just fine. I cleaned it up and isolated him in the back porch. By the time I got off work, he was all swollen and infected. A trip to the vet and he’s staying over night, antibiotics on board and tomorrow he’ll need anesthesia and drains put in. The vet said he thinks it was coyotes. This is the third coyote attack he’s seen in the last week.
While I was there I reminded the vet that I was looking for a feral barn cat. He told me he had treated a cat that day for Animal Control. Wild, almost mean if you tried to mess with him. His tail had been cut off somehow. The vet said he hated to give the cat back to AC, because he knew that after three days they’d euthanize him. He told me if I got him from AC, he’d treat him for free.
So here’s hoping the other 10 animals stay healthy for a while. I love my vet, but my mortgage company likes to be paid, too.
I would be nervous about setting a cat loose on the property with coyotes in the area. They are well known for killing cats. I hope you have a way of protecting the poor critter at night.
lavenderviolet - I hadn’t thought about that - the cat can (and hopefully would) live in the barn, but it’s something to think about. Do you think I could train the coyotes to kill rats?
I have housecats, and they sometimes go outside (one of the neutered males will occasionally chose to stay in the barn for a week or two, but always chooses the comfort of a warm waterbed), and I’ve never lost one to coyotes, but I know they’re out there because I hear them sometimes at night. I think that normally they don’t come too close because I have 6 large dogs. But the barn is about 600 feet from the house, and the dogs don’t go down there unless they’re with me.
SeaDragonTattoo - Because I’m a frequent flier, my vet usually gives me a good deal. The equine vet made a housecall while i was at work, offered to catch my horses (I had them shut in the barn), examined both horses, left pain meds, called me to consult, and only charged $60.
Wile E - Wylie is fully named Wylie DuFresne (who happens to be a famous chef). His brother, adopted at the same time, is called Andy DuFresne, who was the escaped prisoner in The Shawshank Redemption. I thought for two dogs on a death row pound, the names were pretty good.
As far as a feral barn cat goes, they usually do pretty well against coyotes if your barn is open and there are plenty of places for them to get up and away. Cats do up well. Coyotes don’t.
One of our dogs had a small red lump on her side. She had it removed surgically and the report came back with bad news. It was a Mast Cell Tumor, and the margins were not good enough. So she had a second surgery and some chemo. After the second surgery she had a bought of pancreatitis, requiring hospitalization.
When I was bitching about how much I spent on the dog last month, my gf pointed out that she is happy and healthy and I would have spent 3x what I did. She is right, but I still felt like complaining.
OP: Do you guys shoot coyotes? We had a sighting this spring (coyotes are rare here) and a neighbor polled everyone to see if they would mind if he shot the coyotes. Even the rabid anti hunting types told him to go ahead.
Which reminds me - need to schedule a bordadella booster for the dogs.
If Wylie is looking battered, there’s likely one or more coyotes out there looking worse. When they attack a domestic dog, they don’t usually let up until they’ve killed it, or are seriously driven off. Which means that Wylie likely gave far better than he got.
kayaker - I don’t shoot them, but I don’t shoot anything. Last year I had to get my neighbor the cop to shoot the rattlesnake in my front yard. I’m pretty live-and-let-live, but when my animals are in danger, I can get riled. I know about the expesnive part - last year my doberman Grace was in congestive heart failure. Meds were $150/mo plus other supplements and cooking special food for her, it got expensive. It was worth it, though. She had a pretty good quality of life until the very end.
Tranquilis - I didn’t know that about coyotes. I live in the middle of nowhere, with deer and turkeys and all the usual wildlife suspects. The coyotes can make their living preying on them.
limegraan - The barn is two stories and has plenty of hideyholes. The cat could easily live in the loft.
Good luck with the critters! Hope everyone stays well.
A fixed feral cat for your barn has probably got a pretty good chance. As long as he’s fixed, he won’t likely go roaming for girlfriends* while he’s got a warm barn and food handy. And since he’s already been out wild, he’s got a pretty good idea of what he needs to do to survive - namely, be close to someplace (like a barn) where he can get away from the 'yotes.
You are planning to feed him some, yes? That will help keep him home in the barn. Just be sure to put the food up where it won’t attract the coyotes. (If it acts as rat bait, well, I’m sure the cat will appreciate the help.)
At any rate, his odds of survival are better in your barn than at AC, right?
*I say it’s not likely because I have had fixed toms that never figured out they were fixed.
If you’re living in good prey territory, then likely it was either a very old or ill coyote, or a territorial attack. Coyotes are smart, cooperative, and patient. They don’t generally attack unless they’re cornered, desperate, or think they have a sure thing. If they stuck around long enough to do injury, then it’s 'cause they thought they’d win.
I called Animal Control about the tom, and they said he was unlikely to be adopted because of his temperment. In fact, they usually FIV test, vaccinate and deworm, but they said if I got the cat they’d send all that with the cat to the vet to administer while the cat is sedated. They can’t touch him.
My plan would be to put the cat in a large dog crate in a stall with food and water for a couple days until it became accustomed to it’s surroundings, then let him go. I’ll put food in the loft for him, and there’s loose hay in the loft to sleep in. Mostly I wouldn’t mind about rodents in the barn - the horses use it as a run-in, and except for hay, I don’t store my feed there. But this summer there was a rattlesnake in the main aisle. I want to get rid of the rodents to get rid of venomous snakes.
Well, we’re back from the vet. Overnight stay, surgery, antibiotics, etc. $180. The vet said the throat injury wasn’t a tearing injury but a crushing one. Wylie is lucky his trachea wasn’t crushed.
He’s very chastened boy. He’ll sleep in the crate for the next days and he should heal up okay.
Something went for a kill-bite and failed - Probably because Wylie wasn’t putting up with it. Very much confirms the coyote theory IMO - Dogs normally don’t try to kill each other when they fight, and anything larger than a coyote would’ve done much more damage.
They do get expensive. I’ve gone through two tail amputations ( partial, same tail) and have a real fear I’m looking at a third, full-on Manxification in the near future. Stupid self-mutilating cat. Not uncommon apparently - I’ve now discovered ( two amputations later ) that some vets recommend always taking off the whole tail for any tail injury because partial amputations seem to trigger that behavior in some individuals, leading to weeks of frustration and drugged, cone-headed cats.
