Hoofprints in the snow confirmed it was indeed an ungulate...though the prints seemed a bit small for a full-grown elk.
Nonetheless I started building a little elk fantasy in my mind until I went into the haybarn and saw...
...Smokey, who obviously had jumped a fence during the night and parked herself where there was the most food.
-- Thus proving that Occam's razor (often misquoted as "the simplest explanation is more likely the correct one") applies here.
