Farm Predators

deadman

deadman

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Southern Saskatchewan
We have approx 70 laying hens, and in the summer 100+ meat birds. They aren't free-ranging birds, but are outside during the day.

We also got 2 calves recently, and frequently get coyote and fox visitors around the barn and coop.

My wife has plans for adding more animals around the place, and my question is Sask specific.

Can anyone point me toward any regs regarding predator control for farm animal protection? More specifically, predator control at night.

Cabelas sells (or sold) a Sightmark Wraith ir setup. I picked one up with the intention of putting it on a rifle but I'm not 100% sure about the regs regarding this specific use.

I've used the Wraith as a handheld unit to watch coyotes in the pasture at night but that's it.

Any insight/links to regs would be appreciated.
 
It's against the law to hunt anything with lights or at night in Sask, including coyotes. The easy answer is, don't 'hunt' at night. I wouldn't advise anything else on a public forum.
 
Read the Saskatchewan Ranch Act or Livestock Act or whatever they call it.

Protecting Livestock is entirely different than Hunting.
 
MiG25 said:
Read the Saskatchewan Ranch Act or Livestock Act or whatever they call it.
Click to expand...

They appear to only be relevant to abuse of animals largely from human hands, or lack thereof.

MiG25 said:
Protecting Livestock is entirely different than Hunting.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but all reg's/law's I can find don't allow for discharging of firearms at night. This is Sask, and farmers do tend to do what we want, but that doesn't mean we'll counsel so on a public forum.
 
No, I'm NOT looking for someone to chime in with the old "3 S's" advice.

Looking for some clear regs on the matter in regard to protecting the animals.

Not that I have a huge operation, but even on a small scale it's a lot of work to keep them from dying.
 
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Take a cellphone/podcast/headphones, stake out your farm yard 1/2 hr before weather ap dawn till an hour after. Inverse in evening, i know BC its 1/2 hr before and after. Pick off a few fox and coyotes, will tune the rest in. You don't need any large or noisy calibers. Most shots will be close, say from 22 hornet through 22 lr. Tracks in the snow will give you a idea of traffic, patterns, were to set up. An enormous coyote is 35-40 lbs unless they take steroids in Saskatchewan, fox are tiny. Hides are worth nothing, unless you want to keep some. I suppose any rifle is fine if you don't care about hides and your neighbours aren't Karen's and Chad's.
 
Might be worth checking at your rm office
Here in past years they have provided poison
And they have also paid a bounty on coyote

A PITA but you could live trap and dispatch later
 
nowarningshot said:
Take a cellphone/podcast/headphones, stake out your farm yard 1/2 hr before weather ap dawn till an hour after. Inverse in evening, i know BC its 1/2 hr before and after. Pick off a few fox and coyotes, will tune the rest in. You don't need any large or noisy calibers. Most shots will be close, say from 22 hornet through 22 lr. Tracks in the snow will give you a idea of traffic, patterns, were to set up. An enormous coyote is 35-40 lbs unless they take steroids in Saskatchewan, fox are tiny. Hides are worth nothing, unless you want to keep some. I suppose any rifle is fine if you don't care about hides and your neighbours aren't Karen's and Chad's.
Click to expand...
Picking them off hasn't taught them much other than to wait until the yard quiets down for the night.

I've knocked some down during the day but in my limited experience there's still enough of an attraction keeping them coming back.

I've had them out around the pasture at various ranges down to standing in the coop with a bird in mouth.

I'm familiar with their usual lines of travel when simply passing by, but no snow this year and they do skulk around the buildings in the yard.

I shot one just over 200 yds last Sunday as the sun was going down, he was standing in the field calling to my dogs.

They are definitely more active after dark in my immediate area, as I said I've used the ir setup to watch them gather in the pasture behind the barn.

I will ask one of my neighbors about the rm, he's on the council and also has had livestock in the past.

As for the other neighbors, they are all on board for controlling the predators, most have cattle etc.
 
No legal advice, sorry as I'm not local (In Ontario this is under the Fish and Wildlife act, but searching for similar in the equivalent SK act did not pan anything out)... Here's the collection of SK Acts... https://www.canlii.org/en/sk/laws/stat/nav/a/ maybe you'll do better than I ...

[you may ignore the rest as it's a bit of a detour]

But have you looked at getting a LGD (livestock guardian dog)? They take care of most predators... We have a Maremma but there are other close breeds.

Ours lives with the sheep and watches out for the chickens who are free range during the day. Sheep are on the pasture 24/7 until snow gets too deep - they are out right now, just eating hay. We are on dog number two now, first passed from age... they take a little training to respect property boundary and what to kill and not. Coyotes are not a problem at all any more - dog is big enough to take any of them down. Foxes are somewhat of an issue with the new pup who hasn't quite figured them out - mainly because they are smart and wait for him to be on patrol away from the birds... but he took most of the load of guarding even at 7 months old this summer. First dog hunted and killed the foxes himself...

If you haven't seen "The Biggest Little Farm" it's worth a watch. You can se the LGD working to protect the operation even if it's not the focus of the documentary ...
 
We had less predators around when we had pigs in the bush behind the chickens. Even the wolves started going around the property. If it’s a consideration and you have any questions feel free to PM me.
 
Can’t help you with the SK regs question but do you have good fencing in place, ever thought about electric fencing? For example, both my direct neighbors and I have livestock, goats, sheep, ducks, chickens, horses mainly, I’ve literally seen coyotes on both their properties. They have both lost animals to coyotes and cougars, one had a grizzly in his side yard eating from his fruit trees. Neither of them have perimeter electric, we have it on three sides. The controller is powerful enough to power a 1/4 section, I have never seen a large predator on our property. We have a top hot wire and lower hot wire on the outside of the fence, around the upper section of the property we have 8’ deer fencing that keeps animals out of the garden/orchard.

It is noticeable how predatory animals skirt our property and enter my neighbors, the two places above and behind us have big hay fields between us and their houses so there’s a great buffer for anything that want to travel through. Had a coyote sitting in my neighbors back field calling to my dogs the first year we were here, I snuck out with a rifle but it hightailed it through the neighbors fence avoiding anything hot to get into the thick bush one property over.
 
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Something I'm going to have to dig deeper on I guess. I've done what I can to keep the birds contained and protected but it would be pretty hard to fence the entire yard to keep them out.
 
We setup a call about an hour before sunrise, have another coffee then head out to the yard and turn it on just as the sun comes up. We've gotten a few right at that "magic hour". No need to go after them at night outside of regular hunting hours.

Hunting them with spotlights in the middle of the night in Montana did not seem to yield better results. It felt weird because you could only see them for a split second and tracking them through an optic was tough.

Of course all that said, I know second hand that if a Sask coyote was or had been digging at the base of a fence or animal enclosure on a populated farm, in the middle of the night, and the owner was alerted by said animals, it may or may not have died there by high speed lead poisoning. Thats not hunting in most eyes.
 
No offence, but the last person I'm calling is a game warden. I'll protect my animals, they will have to prove otherwise.

Donkeys will kill a coyote, but you have to keep your dogs away from them also.
 
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