These days, coyotes are inching closer to urban areas and leaving their calling card – a trail of poop. Their scat is unmistakable and different from your dog’s, containing bits of hair and bones from other animals.
To avoid cleaning coyote poop every morning, you must find a way to deter them from entering your yard. In this guide, you will learn nine effective ways to do that.
Before you can stop coyotes from pooing in your yard, you must understand basic coyote behavior. Coyotes tend to come around at night when they can avoid a run-in with humans. Some methods to keep them away from your space include:
- Removing potential food sources from their reach
- Having a guard dog in your yard
- Applying hazing methods like making loud noises and throwing things at them
- Using coyote-repellant scents and frightening devices
This is just an excerpt. We discussed quite a handful of effective methods in the guide.
Below, we will explain several effective ways to stop coyotes from pooing in your yard and answer some questions about household coyote problems.
9 Ways To Stop Coyotes From Pooing in Your Yard
Dealing with coyotes can be stressful as they always seem to find their way back to your yard. The presence of these wild animals can put you, your family, and your pets in danger.
If you have children or pets, they are more prone to a vicious coyote attack. You may even get hurt while rescuing your pet from a coyote’s jaw.
The easiest and most potent way to stop these animals from pooing in your yard is to deter them from entering your yard. Here are a few strategies we believe can help:
1. Cut Out Potential Food Sources
To keep coyotes out, you must first identify what brings them to your yard in the first place. Food is often the main culprit, and many people ignorantly feed coyotes by leaving food for them to find.
Once coyotes smell food or trash from your yard, they subconsciously associate your home with a free meal. The best you can do is to establish that there is no free meal for them in your yard.
To do this, here are a few things to do – keep trash cans covered, and clean your grill immediately after use. You can move the grill inside your shed or garage to prevent coyotes from sniffing around it.
Coyotes are known to be opportunistic wild animals and will jump at the chance at a free meal. Once they smell food, they will do everything to go after the source.
Another thing you should pay attention to is where you place your pet’s food. Leaving your pet’s food outside signals to coyotes that there is potential prey in your house. Take your pet’s food indoors to protect them and save valuable hours you would have spent cleaning coyote poop.
Fruit trees are another potential coyote food source. These wild animals eat absolutely anything, including rotting fruit that drops to the ground.
So, if you have a fruit tree in your yard, pick up fruits as they fall and never let them rot outside. The fewer food sources in your yard, the less likely you will have coyotes pooing in your yard.
2. Get Some Coyote-Repellant Scents
Using a scent deterrent is effective against many pests and wild animals, including coyotes. To stop coyotes from pooing in your yard, make your yard smell like something they hate.
Some scents that turn coyotes off are vinegar, perfume, wolf urine, and cayenne pepper.
However, adopting this strategy will require you to keep applying them for it to work. This is especially so in harsh weather conditions, as weather elements can easily wash off these repellents.
3. Use Frightening Devices
Coyotes hate sudden lights. You can take advantage of this to prevent these unwanted visitors from pooing in your yard.
A motion-activated light sensor is an excellent device to use for this purpose. Unlike natural repellents, this automatic technique requires you only to set up the system.
Another thing coyotes hate so much is water. So, you can get a motion-detecting sprinkler to stop them from messing up your yard.
Similar in function to a light sensor, this sprinkler releases water once it detects coyotes in your yard. Although this method requires you to shell out a few bucks, it saves you a lot of effort you would have exerted cleaning coyote poop.
4. Clean Your Bird Feeders
Again on the subject of removing things that attract coyotes, bird feeders join the list. Although coyotes do not eat bird seed, bird feeders can draw their attention to potential prey – rodents.
Now you know how messy birds can get with seeds, with all that fluttering. As a result, bits of seeds and kernels can fall to the ground.
These, in return, attract rodents and other small animals, including rats, rabbits, and squirrels. Coyotes are typically drawn to mice and rabbits, and these two animals for part of their diet.
You can buy a bird seed tray from local stores to catch falling seeds from your bird feeder. Alternatively, you can take down the bird feeder entirely.
5. Clean Your Yard Regularly
Most people do not know this, but coyotes are elusive animals that avoid human contact by any means. As such, they love things that provide them with sufficient covers, like bushes and tall grass.
If you are determined to keep coyotes from pooing in, mow your lawn often. As for bushes, keep them trimmed to at least six inches. Then, clear out brush piles from your yard.
Not only does this activity keep coyotes out, but it also helps deter small animals like rats and rabbits.
6. Keep Animals Inside
As natural predators, coyotes will relentlessly come after prey. The more they come around your yard hoping to catch your pets, the higher chances they have to poop.
So, keeping your pets far away from them will help deter these wild animals from coming around. For example, do not allow your pets to run free around the yard.
Coyotes are smart animals and can tell if you let your dogs come and go as they please. Or if you let your cats come and go as they please.
The idea here is not to restrict your beloved pets but to reduce coyotes’ interest in your house. If they can’t associate your home with potential prey, they won’t have any need to come around your yard.
So, to keep coyotes out of your yard, keep your animals/pets indoors.
7. Get A Guard Dog
Guard dogs are typically trained to ward off predators and can scare coyotes off your house. When choosing a guard dog, get one from a strong breed, preferably with a history of guarding livestock.
Some breeds you can consider for this purpose include sheepdogs, Komondors, shepherds, and mastiffs.
The presence of a large dog in your yard will typically ward off coyotes. However, these wild animals can take down guard dogs if they get hungry enough to risk it all.
8. Build A Fence Around Your House
Coyotes can’t poop in your yard if they can’t get into it in the first place.
An excellent and effective way to keep them away from your space is to erect a perimeter fence around your building. Only ensure the fence is strong and tall enough beyond what they can jump over. For excellent results, your yard fence has to be a minimum of six feet high.
It will also help if you install coyote rollers on top of the fence. This way, even if coyotes try to climb the fence, they cannot get a grip.
Coyotes are excellent diggers, so you must watch the bottom of your fence. Either install the fence to go beyond ground level or create a layer of concrete underneath it to prevent digging.
9. Apply Hazing Methods
Hazing coyotes can make them fear you and never enter your yard. It is an intimidation technique that harasses coyotes and creates fear in their mind. Among others, you can make loud noises, wave your hands, or throw things at the coyote’s feet.
However, this does not mean that you should hurt them. Only do enough to scare them away but not in an aggressive manner.
This creates an impression in these unwanted animals that humans are scary and must be avoided. With that in mind, coyotes will avoid human interaction as much as they can.
Conclusion
Before you can stop coyotes from pooing in your yard, you must understand basic coyote behavior. Coyotes tend to come around at night when they can avoid a run-in with humans.
In the guide above, we discussed a few ways to stop these wild animals from pooing in your yard. Some of the methods discussed include cleaning your yard, building a perimeter fence, and applying coyote repellants.
We are confident that following the steps above will help you permanently deal with your coyote problem.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Can You Tell Coyote Poop From Other Animals?
Although coyotes belong to the canine family, the differences between their poop and that of other animals are very clear.
For one, coyote poop is rope-like, segmented, and often contains small bones and bits of hair. This may be from rodents and other small animals they may have preyed on. Their poop also appears shinier than a dog’s or wolf’s poop.
Also, you will notice that it tapers at one end. While a dog’s poop appears soft from eating all that dog food, a coyote’s poop is often firmer, depending on its diet.
The easiest way to identify coyote poop is through its tabular shape. Then, some parts of its poop appear thinner than others. Their poop is also often dark brown or black and between 3-8 inches long.
What Should I Do If A Coyote Approaches My Dog?
Suppose you are walking your dog and run into a wild coyote. The first thing to do is remain calm and not run. Running can cause the coyote’s predator instinct to kick in, and you don’t want that. Instead, maintain eye contact, slowly back away, and change your direction.
Alternatively, you can use devices like your phone alarm, a bell, or a whistle to scare the coyote off.
Coyotes are scared of humans. Thus, you can scare them off if you do these boldly while you move toward them. Wave your hands repeatedly over your head and shout as you inch towards them until they run off. However, some coyotes know these tactics, and they may not work on them.
So, if they keep advancing toward you and your dog, you can back away and try other defensive alternatives, like throwing stones at them.
