What predator of sheep will kill a baby lamb and leave the skin, head, and legs?

Question

Are there any good sheep predator websites?

Answer 1

coyotee

Answer 2

Is it possible the lamb died on its own? Then it would make sense if a buzzard or scavenger ate its innards.

http://www.sheep101.info/predators.html

Answer 3

Do you have any pictures of the kill?

Could be a feral dog, they would eat the lamb.  Could be coyotes.

How did the leg bones look?  Teeth marks, obviously chewed?  Where did you find the lamb?

Domestic dogs would have shreaded the lamb and left bits of it everywhere.  How old, what breed, and how big was the lamb?

Was this a neatly left skin?  You could have a human who killed it.  However most human thieves are not going to take the time to skin it there.  They will just take the entire lamb.  Yes, they would take the internal organs.  I raise meat goats, and use to also raise sheep.  My ethnic customers eat almost all of the internal organs, including the intestines.

If it was a very young or small lamb, it's unlikely to be a bear or cougar....they would have killed the mother instead (more meat).

It could have been an eagle.  I've seen Bald Eagles go after my own baby lambs.  Any raptor that killed, or happened on a dead lamb is most likely going to start eating it from the a**s forward.  They would also tear off strips and pieces of hide and leave them laying about.

Raccoons are unlikely to kill a lamb, unless you live near idiots who are feeding the raccoons.  Once people start feeding raccoons, they start learning to hunt and kill, and eat household pets like cats and small dogs.  Under normal circumstances, a lambs mother should be able to scare off a raccoon.

Most likely a coyote, but also possible it was a human.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years

Answer 4

sounds like a carnivorous bird.

Answer 5

IN the Midwest I would say coyote.