Coyote breeding?

cutch

New member
I was recently told that only the alpha male and alpha female do the breeding in an area. Is this true?
Thanx in advance,
Cutch
 
It is true when it comes to the wolves we have here in sweden.....im not sure about yotes but i wouldn´t be suprised if it is.......
 
It is true with coyotes also. But unlike coyotes, wolves have a large social pack structure. Wolf packs have betas and omegas waiting in the wings for their opportunity to move up the social ladder.

A coyote "pack" is made up of genetically related individuals, and are not a "permanent" unit. A pack of coyotes rarely exceeds about 6 individuals.

A wolf pack is made up of genetically related and unrelated individuals, and reside together year round as a "permanent" unit. A wolf pack can contain as many as 15 members. The large pack size is because of their coordinated group hunting techniques. Coordinated group hunting among coyotes is very rare.
 
its rare but i have seen it. i've seen coyotes hurd antalope into the corner of a woaven wire fence it was a group of 4. two hurders and two ambushers.
pairs working together are common and even threes.
when they pack up in the winter i've seen 8 but not sure if it is hunting or breeding. i would asume hunting deer with there location.
then in the late summer they teach the pups and can be in large groups
last year on ormsby i knew of three familys of 8, 3 adalts and 5 3/4 grown pups. they were groups of 2 to 5 when i got done.
two groups were in feb and march the last one i found in sept and thinned them in oct.
two groups were neighbors and i had both groups show up at their border line in the same set. it was a big sand dune and the tarratories border ran threw a saddle in the dune.
i was set up where i found about 5 scent piles.
only one domenate pair came all the way in the others stayed skylined on the dune. when i took the pair that group split up.
i took one out of the other group that same day in a different spot and thinned them more in other trips.
in spring if you take one out of a group they all will move.
i'm not a expert but i have seen alot of coyotes and behavior. lots of experiance but no book study just eye witness and my own opinions of why things worked this way.
 
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Thanks guys.
If you kill the female, does the male move on or will one of the subordinate females take over. Or vice versa.
They seem pretty prolific for only the one pair to be doing the breeding. interesting stuff
 
Quote:
They seem pretty prolific for only the one pair to be doing the breeding



Ahhh, but that's only one pair per established territory. How many established breeding territories do you think would exist within a 50 sq. mile area? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
I believe, based on what I've seen that Coyote territories overlap more/farther in, than what some believe. A visual; An irregular ring/mark, laying inside perhaps a 1/4 or more of another irregular ring/mark on a table top. Not just "touching" each other's outside border.

I've noticed these territories are very irregular. As for their "den site". It would be inside of their respective border, IMO.

I killed female from a pair, a few yrs ago. I was after this pr. I spotted them often laying in a small focal area, below a ridgeline on a hillside. I couldn't get close.

Finally, the snow went moderately soft. I stalked to a couple hundred yards from the them. I shot, missed the male, the female bolted quartering towards me, she died.

I hunted, that male heavily the rest of the Winter. Never seen him again. Infact, I didn't see a coyote track in that section the rest of that Winter. This section, had good habitat.

Following Winter, no tracks. Two Winters later, that section had coyotes in it again.
 
If you have a litter of pups say every 3-4 miles thats roughly 4x4 16 square miles..so that's about 3 breeding pairs in 50 sq.miles..that's my guess
 
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i shoot coyotes in the same terratories every year.
one old male i took the female from every year for three years we called the male "bullit proof".
I know it was the same male he had a bullit hole in one ear and a graze mark on his back when we finnaly killed him.
the last two years we haven't seen any in that spot.
most males will hang without the female but most females will bug out without the male. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
coyotes are individuals though so nothing to do with them is cut in stone. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
 
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This is a trick question, because there is no “one-size-fits-all” answer.

In a given 50 sq mi area there are many variables to consider. Availability of prey, water, and cover are primary factors, but pressure and frequency of human traffic are to be considered. In a worst case scenario there might only be one dominant pair defending that 50 sections. There may be other coyotes in that territory, but only one Alpha (breeding) pair.

However, when times are good, breeding territoriality relaxes. An abundance of prey and the absence of pressure could easily allow as many as 12 Alpha pairs (or more) to occupy the same 50 sections. Spatial density only becomes an issue when food is scarce. These prime conditions affect the temperament of Alpha pairs also. More tolerance of transients (to a limited degree). Less pressure for dispersal of last seasons litter. Less aggression towards Alphas of neighboring territories (some trespassing allowed). The total population of those same 50 sections could soar to 150 resident coyotes. Add in transients and the total could top 200.

But these are the extremes. Real life is somewhere in between. Reality is not static; it’s dynamic and always changing. That’s why a condition in AZ may not apply in OK or SD. It depends on your area at your particular point in time. But knowing the extremes gives you a gage to estimate with.
 
I was a former ADC trapper in SD from 1977-92. When I first started I felt that in most areas of central SD, we had one family group of coyote in a township (6 X 6 miles). In my later years, I remember one sheep killing complaint where I located four coyote family groups with dens in a township in the area of that complaint.

A former trapper mentioned that an average date of birth for the coyote pups is April 10th and they usually start coming out of their dens at a month of age or May 10th in SD. The female coyotes in SD had an average of 5-6 pups.

I was talking to one of our current state trappers last week and he mentioned that he feels that he only has 10% of the coyotes that he had in the high density years in the 1980-90's. Poor health conditions and reduced fur caused by mange along with cold winter days has put a great stress on the coyotes and lowered their numbers.

Steve
 
i know of 15 breeding pairs in 10 sections on ormsbie
the food source is vary dence.
if your were to start the section with the water as the center i know 4 pairs useing the same horse tank.
water is the key out there
rabbits are thicker than anywhere i ever saw,deer winter there with cwd and wyoming winters lots of winterkill deer and starting next month the antalope fawns start hitting the ground. food is no problem water is the key.
there are large spaces in areas with no water and no pairs but if water was available every section the coyote dencities would be even higher.
right now with no stock in the area the only tanks that are filled are the ones with windmills 1 out of every 4.
in what we call the high country [water is shut off] /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif its two sections and it generaly had three pairs this year i can only locate one pair its watering at soda lake and working some privete land i can't hunt.{the p.d. town we went to nasa to the north} some guys bought a 200 acre chunk with the road on it. i can get around the back of it but they don't seem to want to come that way.
anyway i.d say as far as a 50 section area about 75 pairs if water was plentiful one pair for every 3/4 mile area joining at the water supply. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif
 
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