For the serious coyote people

[Tesoro]

wear i live there are not many coyotes left the wolves have killed most of them

No they didnt..they just mated with them so now you have extra large coyotes to shoot at! Don't let them tell you otherwise.

 

[Webster]

One of Wyman Meinzer's published papers after graduation from Texas Tech was part of the Univ. of Arizona Journal of Range Managment. I was surprised at some of the findings.

Foodniche of Coyotes in the Rolling Plains of Texas

repository.arizona.edu

Coyote diets were determined from scat and stomach analyses over a two-year period in an area centered in the Rolling Plains region of Texas. Fruit from 9 species of native plants were the most important food for coyotes, making up 46% of the annual diet. Honey mesquite pods alone contributed 15.6% of the annual diet. Rodents contributed 24.5% of the coyote's annual diet, while leporids made up just 10.5%. The foodniche of coyotes varied seasonally as well as annually. The coyote's role as an agent of seed dispersal appears minimal since digestion of some seeds by coyotes significantly reduces percent germination. Late evening and pre-dawn hours seem the normal feeding period for most coyotes, and moon phase did not affect the timing of this activity. In this study there was no evidence of coyote predation on cattle.

After hunting on ranches for many years I found most of the ranchers thought coyotes were a threat to their cattle.

Anybody know where coyotes sleep in the winter. Do they always have a den to get out of the weather? I heard someone say that in the summer or cooler weather they like to lay down in the tall grass on a sun facing slope of a hill.

 

[searcher]

I have a ranching friend who I know is on this site from time to time. Once we were shooting ground squirrels until the sun started to set. As I was putting my rifle away, my friend spied a coyote on the top of the next hill over, and he was adamant that it needed to be dispatched immediately. He ranged it as I settled in for the shot…had the dope right and sent it, killing the coyote cleanly. It took about 30 minutes to drive the truck to where the coyote was laying, and once we found him…it was a pretty big male…my friend pointed to the bottom of the back side of the hill where the coyote was looking when I shot him. Sure enough…there was a cow in the process of giving birth. According to my friend, it was common to loose a number of calves every year during the birthing process, since the cow can’t really do much to defend or get away. I’m sure most of the time those coyotes will eat whatever is an easy meal…but they sure seem to have the ability to be calf killers as well.

MQ1

Yes - I shoot on ranches that hold cattle and the ranchers beg us to shoot the coyotes. They apparently do prey on the newly born calves in this area. One of the ranch hands told me of his seeing coyotes chewing on a newborn calf that was only partially out of the cow. Might have been a birthing problem gone way bad. Left an impression.

 

[max evans]

do you hunt with a Ruger 1, if so how do i join! if so how do i join, mjevans48@hotmail.com

 

[max evans]

do you hunt with a Ruger 1, if so how do i join!

 

[Bill K]

Every area that wolves

wear i live there are not many coyotes left the wolves have killed most of them

have been introduced, have seen big game and even domestic animals either move out or get eaten down in numbers. They are a killing machine,

 

[butchlambert]

Anybody know where coyotes sleep in the winter. Do they always have a den to get out of the weather? I heard someone say that in the summer or cooler weather they like to lay down in the tall grass on a sun facing slope of a hill.

Hey Butch,
In the winter they do not live in dens. Dens are used only during whelping season in May.
In winter they stay in underbrush or on the sunny side of hills or valleys.
Wyman

 

[AWS]

In WA I used to see bright orange coyote poop with carrots in it, some with apple peels near orchards and seeds that appeared to be from Russian Olives. Down here in NM I see a lot of mesquite beans and even red chilli pepper skins.

Up in WI and MN there was usually fur but I wasn't out looking when there was vegetable matter available.
L

 

[butchlambert]

A note this morning from Wuyman.


Coyotes will eat about anything that will stay down, and some things that will not!
During my food habit research at Texas Tech I analyzed some 500 samples of coyote scat and hundreds of coyote stomachs. What they could eat would boggle the mind. Contrary to some beliefs that coyotes are carnivorous, we found them to be omnivorous.

 

[Coyotefurharvester]

In the winter (in my area)coyote will often spend the day in dry culverts, especially top to bottom culvert in drainage ditch banks. More than once I have used 25-30' of barbed wire to rotor root a dead coyote out. I have several I can hike out and setup 150-200 yards away, wait for the coyote to come out at sunset. Best days are windy/cold days, when the wind dies down about a hour from sunset. Many times I have tried to speed up the shooting time by calling, they never come out until after the sun sets. The last couple winters deep snow/cold has not allowed me to use this pattern, hoping this month to visit some culvert resting spots with my thermal scope. As sometimes the coyote came out when it was dark enough the scope reticle wasn't clearly visible, no shot. This pattern gets more common when snowmobiles/hound hunters are running. A den/culvert coyote is easy to spot, the guard hair from the front shoulder/lower neck back about a foot will be broke off. When they spend the day in dens/culverts their breathe will condensate above them, freezing the long hair to the surface. Breaks off when they move.

 

[Klong]

Coyotes like chickens too!

 

[jds holler]

Coyotes like chickens too!

Can't hardly blame em for that. Who don't like chickens?? jd

 

[cptjack]

I wonder if this is the case in different areas.

I lived in west new Mex and coyote dung would be on central stripe of road and you can see the prickly cacti red seed pods in stay. THEE CACTI DOESNT GROE IN NORTHERN CLIMES

 

[msalm]

A trapper friend showed me a picture a neighbor lady of his took. There was a coyote in her front yard 10’ up in an apple tree eating the dried, frozen fruit that was still hanging. That was in a very cold high snowfall year and he must’ve been pretty hungry to do that I’d imagine.

 

[dunraven]

They seem to find deer gutpiles quickly, and also any dead deer I can throw on the bait pile. I know they're taking fawns around here. Whatever they're eating, a VMax is called for.

 

[GoWyo!]

A trapper friend showed me a picture a neighbor lady of his took. There was a coyote in her front yard 10’ up in an apple tree eating the dried, frozen fruit that was still hanging. That was in a very cold high snowfall year and he must’ve been pretty hungry to do that I’d imagine.

I seem to recall that pic, or a similar one. Coyotes are the most adaptable species next to humans. IMO. Well, we used to be…

 

[6xcshooter]

Well here’s the thing about coyotes. They will eat most anything from grass to meat. When everything else is dead on earth the only living things will be cockroaches and coyotes. You can never get rid of cockroaches and the coyote will have a never ending food supply.

 

[timeout]

I seem to recall that pic, or a similar one. Coyotes are the most adaptable species next to humans. IMO. Well, we used to be…

My guess is that there will be a coyote around to whiz on the last man's gravesite. They have basically no game law protection and are hunted in every manner imaginable, yet still they thrive. Coyotes are most definitely omnivores. I was in Oklahoma one time when the watermelons were ripe. Every piece of coyote scat in the area, be it middle of the section or middle of the road, was full of watermelon seeds. They love venison and beaver meat but will about starve to death before eating raccoon. They are excellent mousers. I've trail hounded them, trapped lots of them, and owned a coyote hound training facility. Probably the most universally hated animal in the country but they are survivors.

 

[jxb]

I bet if that study was done into today’s urban areas it would be an eye opener.

I imagine they are as opportunistic as possible, just depends on areas, tough way to make a living.
A city fellow showed up here a little over a year ago. Going to live off the land, yeah right. Started off with free range chicken chickens. What didn’t get smashed on the road the hawks, foxes and coyotes got. That is about 3/8 of a mile from, fox with a chicken went across the backyard last year, lol.
PBS had an interesting program on urban coyotes.

Speaking of eye openers, I came across this some years back. I have no idea what they eat but check or uncheck through the years. Regardless of when that one area of the city is the most reported.

https://pdxedu.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=db99c10f5d6e4bb7afeaa36d1fd5e0f2

Please keep in mind this doesn't reflect coyote numbers per se, but rather sightings. There's more an plenty of them seen regularly in the burbs whereas this doesn't reflect that. I suspect it's simply that either people in the burbs don't care enough to add their sighting or even more likely don't know about this site.

Not many years back I saw a yote about a block from the freeway and on a roll between a main city street and a mini mall kinda place. Kinda scrungy looking thing so I just sat there watching. Pretty soon I saw why, someone came out of starbucks and gave it a snack, looked like a muffin. Clearly it had done that many times as it took it, looked both ways and crossed four lanes plus center turn lane like it was just another day of bumming off folks. I knew then why it looked so much scroungier than most of the other burb yotes.

 

[jxb]

wear i live there are not many coyotes left the wolves have killed most of them

They certainly have made a dent in them but I suspect they are not as thinned out as one might think. All the places I know of like that they learn to stay out of sight and more than anything keep their mouths shut. It's just weird to be somewhere with coyotes and wolves watching the coyotes for hours all times of the day and dead quiet.

Being from there in the Salmon area you've likely seen all sorts of changes in all the wildlife due to the wolves. A stark example is all the elk killed on 93, that seldom happened before wolves were re-introduced. Before that of course was seeing all the plentiful muley herds disappear, at least in the Lemhi range.