Feral Dog maybe? Any tracks around the carcasses?

Maybe not even feral. Just a neighbor who's dog is out at night and bored.

Kind of what I'm thinking. No tracks, the black land around here is dry as a rock and just as hard.

I'm also putting out a few game cams around to see what I can get on them.

Texas Natural Wildlife
Interpreting physical evidence of coyote predation

INTERPRETING PHYSICAL EVIDENCE OF COYOTE PREDATION

Setting up on the carcasses sounds like a waste of time and energy if the carcasses are not being eaten. Seems like the prudent thing to do would be to set up on live goats. They are the targets, are they not?

This is a good read. It covers more than just coyotes, but from what is described thusfar, it sounds like coyote attacks.



http://agrilife.org/texnatwildlife/coyot...yote-predation/

Feral dog usually don't go for the neck area first. So you would see bite marks and ripped hide in the rib and hind quarter area as well as neck wounds if it was K9.

Are the bites under the throat and jaw? Skin out the neck and head and look for punctures in that area. Punctures on the head and jaw area as well as the bottom side of the neck can indicate coyote. Male coyotes aren't eating as much form one carcass this time of year as they have all but stopped helping feed the pups. Multiple bites and scratches in this same area are indicators of a bobcat kill.

If the puncture marks are more toward the top of the neck behind the head this indicates a Mt. Lion more than likely. Bites will usually be on either side of the neck and larger holes in the hide. You may also see the seperation of the neck vertebrae. Some ML's will kill for the blood more than the meat; especially if they have already eaten recently. They get a lot of their daily moisture needs from blood. And they will kill just to kill, I've seen an ML that killed multiple lambs in one night for what appearded to be just the fun of it.

Also look at the ground around the kill. Best if done before the buzzards get to them. If it looks like a big mess and covers a lot of ground in one area with trenching marks where the goat put up a fight this leans more toward coyote. Also stomach content will likely be spilt in spots around the kill. If it is clean with very little blood at the kill, then more than likely it is a cat. Cats will lick up the blood before they leave a kill most of the time. In summer, older cats won't take the time to drag a kill somewhere as they know the meat won't last through the heat. But they tend to kill in areas that offer cover to eat in peace.

Hope this helps solve the mystery. Knowing what you're after is half the battle. Good luck getting the killer.

Than again it could be like your neighbor said...chuppa

Sounds more bobcatty from what you are describing. Watch your roads for tracks cats will jump in them to travel, especially big ones. How big are the goats?

local pet dogs are usually the culprits.

No more then about 45lbs.

Found a whole herd of goats killed in one night down by the border. Nothing was eaten. It was a long tail cat and 2 kittens. We figured she was teaching them how to kill.

A bobcat can handle that size with no problem, especially a mature tom. Just sounds way to clean of kills for K9 or yote.

Hope you solve the problem soon.

Thanks DesertHunting! Didn't see anything last night, odds were low, to many people wanting to be involved equals to much scent and noise. Used to be all farm land around here but over the years the farms have broken up and now lots of smaller acreage places. Like I said, I have a few camera's up so maybe we can ID what we're dealing with and then make a plan, or maybe somebody will see something. OR..... we will get enough rain so we can see track is this rock hard ground. You can ride a club footed horse across it right now not be able to tell.