Coyote "pup" question

bl00dtrail

bl00dtrail

New member
I live in southern michigan. Does anyone know when the "breeding season" takes place (I researched and found only "march" as an anwser) Is it possible to narrow down the breeding window more specifically than 1 month timeframe?

also.....
can someone tell me the gestation period for coyotes? I have seen from 55-68 days?

1 more thing....
once the pups are born how long is it before they are actively hunting on their own?

I did forum searches on this topic but didn't find much..... Are the anwsers that I'm looking for very geographically related?


thank you
 
bl00dtrail,
I believe that most of the coyotes are bred by end of febr, or maybe early March. Gestation period is about 63 days, which means pups hitting the ground about April. I think most of the pups can survive on their own by about August. These are rough estimates on my part.
 
Below are some dates concerning Northern Texas. There may be a few week time lapse between the North and the South.

Late Feb-Breeding
Gestation between 60-63 days
Mid April-Den selection is top priority
Pups are born-late April through May lasting into June with first year bitches

Some pups take about 16-18 weeks before they start to embark on solo hunts away from the family unit. Thats sometime around late August.

I dont know if its possible to narrow down the actual conception period anymore then a 30-45 day time frame since all coyotes are different.
 
bloodtrail,
Here in Montana I saw a pair of coyotes "locked up" on February 12. It's really variable as to what part of the country you live in thus the late January to mid March comments. I would expect Michigan to be on a similar timeframe as Montana.
 
Quote:
bloodtrail,
Here in Montana I saw a pair of coyotes "locked up" on February 12. It's really variable as to what part of the country you live in thus the late January to mid March comments. I would expect Michigan to be on a similar timeframe as Montana.



Thanks....

 
Quote:
I think most of the pups can survive on their own by about August.



so they would essentially be hunting/killing on their own?
 
bl00dtrail,
I think that momma will have them trained well enough by then to hunt on their own. If you want to wait until september, you can almost bet your last dollar on it.
 
bloodtrail, so far all the answers you've got are correct.. the one thing i have noticed is a little variation in the dates depending on how hard of a winter we get, but these have just been by observations and i'm no biologist. One thing I wish more michigan predator hunters would do is journal each of there successful hunts so we can compare notes at the end of the year. Our season starts alittle early (july) for me, since the pups are still kinda small. Also if you've noticed off the michigan board not many people are hunting the end of our season..and if they are they are not having much luck.
 
My cousin had one years ago. It never got to the point you could call it domesticated. Loud noises would make it about turn inside out. It was very skittish. I had one for a couple of days. I could tell right off it wasn't a good idea to try and make a coyote a pet.
 
Yea, I guess it's kind of like trying to domesticate a lion or tiger cub. Everything's ok until one day when the neighbor's pets and kids start to dissapear! You can take the animal out of the wild, but you can't take the wild out of the animal. Just too much survival instinct in the genes.

I've seen what domestic dogs (man's best friend?) can do when the survival instinct kicks in after the master dies with "Fido" in the house and isn't found for a few days. Donner party all over again.

Truckeedan
 
Yes forget about trying to raise a coyote pup they all go bad at some point! I haven't heard of one making it a year without some serious biting going on.
As far as breeding it will vary somewhat, can be 200 mile differance in weeks to a month in other portions of the US. "most coyotes" are bred by March 1st some as Early as mid december, it all depends on when the female comes into heat.
Usally the younger the coyote the smaller litter size and in my area bred females run about 65-70%. That's counting all different age groups most coyotes being 2-3 years of age and then a makeup of year old coyotes, depending on pressure applied and if you have mange and disease such as parvo run through your population.
You can do placental checks on coyotes from now till end of summer, you'll find coyote embyros in them in March and April and then may-Sept you can count the placental scars on the uterus. Each scar is a pup so if you find 6 blueish/black scars she had six pups etc.
 
Circa; 1970

My Dad's coyote hunting bud. Had a female yote pup. He kept her in a pen besides his coyote sighthound dog pens. When she(yote) was 2yrs old. She was ok with him & his wife & kids, but thats about it.

The dogs & the yote hated each other, go figure. One day he was at work, wife is home alone on their acreage. She lets out one of the female staghounds. Coyote seen this lone dog was out in the yard. Coyote climbed her 8' chain-link fence. Needless to say the dog & yote commenced to do battle(yote was winning). She tried to break it up, with a broom. Now she's fighting the coyote with the broom. The coyote ran her into her car, that was parked in the driveway(no keys). Now the yote is chasing the dog. She calls the dog into the car, yote was on it's rump, ripping.

The coyote now has her & the staghound trapped in the car(can't leave, w/o a fight). Neighbor drives by & stops(because, she's honking the car horn) Yells at him to call/get her husband to come home from work. Husband comes home. I can't recall if he shot her(yote) or took her out into the country. Personally, I wouldn't have one as a pet.
 
My sister had a coyote pup, "Wiley", that she got from a zoo when he was 6 weeks old. He had 1 eye that was 1/2 bluish grey. Her kids played with the pup when he was little, but as he got older, my sister was the only one that could pick him up or he'd stay around without threatening to bite. She was worried about other people being able to take care of him when she went out of town, so decided to turn him lose when he was 5 or 6 months old. He'd come into the garage & eat dog food at night, and they'd see him at the edge of the hayfield once in awhile, then he disappeared. The next summer one of her neighbors said they had the darndest thing going on at their place. This old rancher rode his horse around checking cows & when he'd get down to the river bottoms a coyote would come out of the brush & follow him almost every day. He said when he'd get off his horse & sit down on the ground the coyote would sit & watch him and take pieces of sandwich that the guy would throw out to him. The rancher said he'd never seen a coyote with the color of eye this one had.
 


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