coyote litter sizes

I need to make some clarifications here. First, my comments on pup mortality are for the area that I work and for the people I correspond with. That is not to say that pup mortality in other areas is not considerably higher.

Second, I realize that mange could play a big part in pup mortality by spreading from an infected adult. I think that is exactly what happened to the fox population in many areas. NO proof, just know that mange has been really hard on red fox and I would assume that it was hard on the pups.

Third, in regards to the 400% difference between Steve's figures and ours. Steve, correct me if I am wrong and refresh my memory here, wasn't your figures the averages for all females where our figures are the averages for all bred females.

We may also have a slight bias towards territorial adult females although we also check the yearlings in the area as well. Seems like the territorial adults would tend to have larger litters.

Based on this, I don't think our figures are as far off.

Steve, where did the .75 come from? Was that the correct number? Wiley E

[This message has been edited by Wiley E (edited 04-20-2001).]
 
Wiley E- Steve clarified that the .75 number was taken from all the breeding age females, whether they were bred or not, whether they had pups or not.
( check his post dated 4-18, "re: #4"

Thanks Steve, Wiley E- this has been an interesting discussion- I am now convinced that canine behavior differs greatly from dogs to coyotes. As far as mange goes, I am not a doctor (gee, trappnman, you didn't have to tell us your no doctor!!!) but have been told by vets that worked closely with me on mange, and my own experiences, that the tendency to have mange is hereditary- I was told that all dogs in fact have the red mange mite present, basically it lies dormant. I was told, and my experiences show this out- that stress causes the mite to become active....how true this is I am not sure, but can tell you that in dogs, it definitly follows bloodlines. In this one line, the bitch would show no outward signs, and in fact had no signs the first time it happened. Her pups would get it, they would be "cured" with the Mite-a-Ban, show no more sypmtoms, but the bitch pups would pass it on to their pups. I raisied 4 litters out of the original bitch, and 4 or 5 out of her pups(I don't remember the exact number now).
The sad thing was this bitch produced well- fd. ch. and winners in the first three litters, and the 4th litter had 1 surviving male, who I still have. No other bitches I had ever had mange, or produced pups that had it- even though they all had daily contact with each other (pre-whelping). I finally quit breeding this line, even though it broke my heart- this bitch was outstanding in every other way. This isn't scientific proof, but it happened exactly as I have stated. I can only surmise that mange, WHEN PRESENT, causes great mortality in fox pups, and why not coyote? I know that untreated, mange can kill wipe out a litter of newborn dog pups in under 3 weeks.



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Your American heritage- Fur Trapping, Hunting and Fishing
 
Wiley--The 0.75 is the average embryonic litter size we found for the 1 year old age class of coyotes (yearlings). We included all females collected for each age class, because they are all members of the population regardless of whether they were pregnant.

I determined age by making microscope slides of the roots of canine teeth for each animal. The cementum layer on the outside of the root deposits at 2 different rates during the year. I stained the tooth sections with Giemsa stain to make it easier to see the dark staining bands. I could then count the number of dark staining bands under a microscope and assign ages. From known age coyotes we collected we determined that each dark staining band equalled 1 year of life. Just about like rings in a tree.

This is the same method I used to determine ages of the 7500 red fox/coyotes/bobcats/etc. in the harvest samples that were discussed in some length on PC in January/February. Kind of labor intensive, but the results were worth the effort. If you liked 1000 piece puzzles when you were a kid, you would absolutely love this kind of stuff.

Leonard--Don't discount your personal observations; that is exactly what field biology is all about. One makes observations in the field and starts to see patterns that leads to an idea (hypothesis). Then one asks questions and gathers some data to see if the idea is consistant or just now and then type of thing. If it is consistant, it gradually becomes a general concept or something like that (theory). Then one communicates with others to see what they are finding, discusses differences/similarities, etc. to see if the theory is generalized enough to become a rule (law). That's what science is all about. Gentlemen like yourself, Wiley, Trappnman, Doc, Azwill, Cal Taylor, Silverfox, Craig Hamilton, Jason in El Paso and about 2/3 or more of the guys on this forum are much better scientists and students of the Coyote University of Advanced Learning than you give yourselves credit for. Nevertheless, that's not all bad; humility is a good character trait you know. But, I don't mind bragging about you guys!
 
Wiley--The 0.75 is the average embryonic litter size we found for the 1 year old age class of coyotes (yearlings). - Steve

Thanks steve, that makes perfect sense. I didn't think that was the average for all females. Wiley E
 
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