Do coyotes pack up year round like wolves? Are they organized with a dominant coyote? Is the dominate animal male or female? Do they work together year round to take down larger animals? Hear tales often about packs of coyotes. Are coyote behaviors the same in west ks praire as they are in pa forrest?

are you bored or what clifton????

wait...

let me guess....

trying to see how many...."i really don't know but i read somewheres" you can.. LMBO

I saw in a movie one time where they run with packs of mice, the mice are the dominant species so the coyote's follow their every move.

k.miller I hear coyote pack stories alot. Wonder if its an eastern yote thing? Hear that in Pa, Oh and Ny pretty regular.

They run in packs here right up until early fall to mid fall but they are family units.If the deer yard up during hard winters they may pack up and work together to take larger game like deer but that is a localized food source and probably still based on a family unit.The most that I can confirm being in the same area at the same time do to catches and tracks was 5 animals,this was during late december,so again I would think a family group.They don't always travel right together though.I watched 3 different coyotes over an hour and a half one morning cross a beaver dam,they all crossed separately over that hour and a half.Each one headed into a cedar swamp,that night they started calling back and forth,they must have went in and laid down for the day.They are an interesting animal for sure...

Some of those pack stories come from people hearing calling in the evening or at night,2 or 3 coyotes moving through an area yipping and barking while hunting can sound like there are several animals.I have heard a lot of people say things like "I heard coyotes last night running and there must have been a dozen,I could tell by all the yipping and barking."

I read somewhere that yotes will gang up to heard mice of cliffs and then seal-a-meal the mice for use latter in the winter.





For real though, I will see tracks of two or three yotes in winter. Don't know if the other seasons of the year are the same though.

they pack hunt deer here in the bigger wood ground danny and they are good at it. dont see it in the farm ground much as better habitat...mice..
i only see it in later winter when we have one anymore. more then one family group too

matt

some packing on grown deer in winter in se alabama - our real problem is during fawning

See, ive read that they do this during lemming season and are so smart, they know when the lemmings make their natural "charge" to the ocean cliffs.

It is said that the indians got the idea for the buffalo jumps from watching coyotes run lemmings off a cliff.











In all seriousness, I have called in 9 animal "packs" before. I think the "pack" behavior (or "family group") varies by region, season, and prey availability.

I know our family groups start to really break up in October around here. Some pups end up in parts unknown real quick, some stick close to home for some time. I also know coyotes from different family groups will team up during winter on prime feed sources (deer yards, livestock, sunflower fields, etc).

I call coyote packs "packs" just because it sounds cool. But around here they're not terribly close knit.

i see them run three-four at a time durling trapping season &rifle season .

3 and sometimes 4 is the most i ever see here

CLT and Matt what you guys describe is what I've seen. Seen some tracks once that set me wondering. Had some pretty heavy snow 10-12 years ago. Seen where 3 coyotes chased a deer out on a frozen pond. Could see plain where the deer slipped and fell. Those coyotes had venison that night. Allways wondered if they got lucky or herded that deer onto that ice. About 2 years ago I was driving in the praire of eastern Colo in the spring. Seen 3 doe antelope. One was all hunched up about to calve or whatever the word is for antelope. A big lone coyote was lying on its belly about 200 yds away watching. The two does not calving were watching the coyote. I didn't have time to stop down the road and sneak back. i wanted to see if those two does were going to help mama protect her baby. Don't know if that coyote had baby antelope or afterbirth for breakfast.

They're packed up here right now, called momma and half grown pup's running around together, lol. Got a call last week about a 'pack' of them killing something in some lady's drive way, her camera by the gate caught it on film so now she's got the whole community in a uproar over it, lol. Took a manged up pair from there in '05.

Nothing like coyote trapping in gated community's, lol.

Nearly all my coyote sightings are singles or pairs, but more singles. I did see 5-6 once in November bowhunting and they were chasing deer. I also shot three in succession in December once. They don't expose themselves much and I usually only see them 3-4 times a year running around. Many people exaggerate their numbers around here mainly because they do carry on a bit in late summer/early fall and the momma and pups can sound like many.

Have two reliable reports of 15 coyotes crossing a pasture over the years. Another reason why I gang set so heavy.

Danny,they run them onto ice on purpose.I remember laying in camp one night and hearing coyotes start up,I went outside because it was close.Our camp was next to a very large(60 acres plus) beaver meadow,at that time it was flooded pretty well.It had been cold for a few days,skimmed over with ice and a little snow on it.I listened to the coyotes getting closer and then I heard ice crashing,the deer was trying to cross the beaver meadow,it was to dark to see it but you could hear it,crash,crash,crash then a pause,then crash,crash,crash,longer pause,crash and a pause.The whole time those coyotes were yipping and barking,you could tell by the sounds that the deer just eventually ran out of gas,the ice crashing stopped eventually and you could hear them yipping and growling.The next morning there was a big red spot out on the ice and snow,I wanted to walk out and look but the ice wouldn't hold me.With binos you could see tufts of hair scattered all over.That was in late November with about 4" of snow in the woods,winter hadn't really started yet.I have seen several times evidence of the same type of thing.On bare ice a deer doesn't have a chance,the can't keep there footing.I have seen them dead on the ice on local lakes from coyotes while ice fishing also...

Took 16 off a 650 acre farm right after they had shot 15 during deer season off it! But that's not normal, lol.

Coyotes hunt in packs.
Summer & early fall it is normally a family.
Then in the fall the adults run the young of the year off and that is the reason you will catch a truck load of young coyotes in late fall & early winter.
Later in the winter they pack up to take deer in the yards in deep snow. When the snow isn't to deep they will push the deer and run them down, or push them out on to the ice where they will slaughter the deer. There has been several incidents recorded (with photo's) of over a dozen deer killed on ice in one location in one night.
And contrary to what a lot of people and some biologist will tell you, they will push and take yearling moose if they can. And they are a lot bigger than any deer that ever walked come Jan, Feb, or March when deer and them are the most easily taken.
Our coyotes in the North East that have been DNA tested carry wolf genes to varying degrees.
How many of you are aware they have reached Newfoundland (crossing over on the ice they believe) and are damaging the caribou there?

Out in the mountain country of BC I have seen as many as a dozen deer in one morning run off mountain sides onto a lake and killed by packs of coyotes. Out on the ice the deer are helpless and easy pray for the coyotes.

ever notice how on this site every reply is different?????

LMBO

then someone who actually knows what they are talking about chimes in...


then the post dies... haha

or some newbie makes a smart remark and the actual person who was helping people learn becomes a lurker

BWAHAHHAHAH

They have family groups til August or late July, then pups start to wander and find their own food, then before long mama ditches them completely, except sometimes a lil female stays and helps next spring. Sometimes they will group up somewhat to take big game like antelope in the winter.

I dont think coyotes follow the same hierarchical dicipline that is meted out in a wolf pack.

what matt said, when I have trapped in the mountains here droppings typically contained lots of deer hair. Around here in farm ground not much deer hair in droppings until after deer season.

Up by me because of the terrain, and what I have studied the mom and pups are running together right now, they wont stay in their dening areas they are like nomads but when it comes to October they start hanging out in their dening areas.
Yesterday I was talking to a guy that works on the pipeline and he traps coyotes in Wisconsin he was telling me that we have allot of dogs up here and most of them are running in pares if not more.
Last summer, In one night we had a coyote at the bottom of the hill at my house and it gave out a howl, it got 11 different responses and I watched 4 coyotes come running to the howl, But from one guy up here tells me if you see 1 there is 6, if their was 11 different howls and you do the approximate math that would make somewhere about 44 to 66 coyotes in my community looking for food that night.
last year I had this happen to me witch I have excellent peripheral vision, when I was making sets I had a coyote watching me not just one time but 4 times and each time I just shifted eyes up looking at the coyote and kept making the motion of making the set the coyotes never moved until I lifted my head up then they bolted away.

you must be bored or someone is telling you story's

In my experience,it depends on how many other packs are in the area and how much food is available.It seems in some areas the pups will hang around longer into the winter,sometimes until late winter,early spring,if there are other packs in the immediate area,a strength in numbers sort of thing.If,there is a large supply of food,say winter killed elk,deer,or livestock,several groups of coyotes will be more tolerant of each other,as they come and go,feeding on these communal food sources.When the food sources disappear,they tend to fall back to their own pack areas.Just my observations,but,by late winter,early spring,everything changes,even in these situations.

Family groups running together right now, and the acorns are hitting the ground big time.

Acorns are falling now?
coyotes eat them? or just hang around cause deer will be feeding?

Coyotes will eat anything,they love berries and apples.When the apples start hitting the ground and berries are ripe their poop will be full of seeds.I don't know about the acorns but it wouldn't surprise me if the ate those too.They also attract the deer,turkeys,squirrels and other small animals,probably following the prey species like you suggested...

I saw 6 together one night in archery season, I think it was a pair and their pups, ended up caughting 42 and 49 pds out of the pack later that week, they shot another one in rifle in the same area. Since then I've only seen 1 or 2 together in that area, not sure why that one pack was there.

Dan

You're right about seeds in poop. I see it very often with coon.

There are usually a male and female may b e with young that have their territory.the coyote territories overlap each other( that is why they have greeting calls)they will band up and hunt together,especially when there is abundant food( cow afterbirth,or perhaps livestock that may present the opportunity for a meal but may take a few dogs to bring them down and can feed them all.if there is an abundance of rabbits,or going for watermellons ect.. they may have no need to band up

What I've seen a pup coyote can feed it self by mid july. Those big eared longlegged pups can out mouse the best barn cats. I've seen them work together in winter but like Matt said only in a bad winter. Personally I think they are crabby rascals and don't even like each other much. They hunt in pairs alot where I've been flushing something then the other grabs it but I havn't seen where they like to share. Seems to me like one is going to eat till its full before the other gets any. I also think either sex can be the one to eat first. When those pups start mousing they don't work together really just in the same area. I don't think mom teaches em to hunt. They are born knowing how.

I have called in a pack of coyotes on a stretch of creek. There were 6. I surmised it was a family group. There were obvious size differences between the four of them and what I concluded was ma and pa. Early fall, before rifle dear season.
I have never seen a hunting pack per say, but would not doubt a pair and its young would hunt together. I was severely ridiculed for stating some litters don't get run off until right at breeding season. Which would be early January here. I also was ridiculed for saying coyotes communicate by barking at each other to locate each other when they get separated. It's a wonder I have lived as long as I have, being so stupid and all.

I threw out 6 Beaver carcasses in April in one spot where I know there are coyotes, and went back next morning....
all gone!!!!!!!!
only the intestines were left from one of the beavers(which I had skinned too deep so they spilled out easy)
There are no wolves or bears in the area...for sure!!
so the coyotes had a big feast or maybe that time of year took the beavers and stashed them someplace as they have young.

This may not apply to coyotes but when I was growing we had some fields behind our house and two summers in a row there was a female red fox that had litters she raised there.After they hayed off the meadows we would see them off and on over the summer.On a few occasions we watched her and 3 or 4 of her little ones come into the field,she would walk down the fence row and every so often they would stop and mill around and when they started back up one of the little ones would stay there on that spot,she would spread them out down the fence row then disappear up into the brush.After a while a rabbit would bust out of the fence row and run the edge of the field,right to the pups and they would take up the chase.She was teaching them how to hunt,I know coyotes and fox are different animals but I don't have any doubts that mom and pop coyote teach the pups how to hunt.