ALL ABOUT COYOTES - The Cycle of Life and Death - Coyote Dens and The Denning Season Episode 2

Hey everybody, on this week's episode of All About Coyotes, we're going to cover the coyote den, the coyote den in season, and how their behavior changes during this time of their life cycle. And then we'll go over the differences in that behavior and how we can apply that to our hunting setups, the sounds that we choose, and our calling sequences that we choose, so that maybe we'll be better at calling and killing coyotes during the den and season time frame of their life cycle. Let's jump right into the footage, see what we can find out about coyotes, and then apply that to our hunting and calling. Appreciate y'all watching. Coyote denning season begins in March each year. Before pups are born, the mated pair is set out in search of a suitable denning area depending on available food, water, and sufficient cover. Established pairs typically return to the same denning area year after year. After a suitable denning area is established, the pregnant female will spend most of her time digging a new den or cleaning out old den sites. The male will spend his time hunting, patrolling, and defending their territory around the den site. The female will not accompany him on these outings. During this time frame, denning coyotes will reduce their travels dramatically, staying at or in close proximity to the den site. Although coyotes are territorial year-round, they become extremely territorial during denning season, aggressively defending against rival coyotes, as well as other animals and domestic dogs. Due to this rise in territorial aggression, denning season is prime time for hunters using decoy dogs, as coyotes usually avoid contact with domestic dogs during other times of the year. The female will work tirelessly for several days and nights, digging out multiple den sites in preparation for the arrival of new pups. Average litter size is five to seven pups, but they often have more when conditions support it. Pregnant females typically prepare multiple holes for dens in the denning area in case the pups need to be moved quickly due to disturbance, fleas, growth of pups, etc. Lone males and unbred females have also been known to instinctively dig dens during the denning season, even though they will not use the den after digging it. Once the primary den site is complete, the female will enter the den and await the arrival of pups. Active dens are identified by freshly dug or scattered dirt, fresh tracks, and worn areas around den openings. After pups emerge from the den, pup sightings, pup tracks, pup scat, and pee spots will also be present. Finished dens may be over six feet underground. Some dens may have a single entrance or exit hole, while others could have multiple entrance and exit holes. Dens are typically located on steep banks or slopes with adequate water and food nearby. After a gestation of 60 to 63 days, the coyote pups are born. The female will remain in the den with them constantly, only leaving for short intervals when she must eat. Newborn baby coyotes born on April 10th whimpering inside the den. Pups arrive March through May, but the majority are born during April. By one week old, the pups are already more vocal, especially when the female leaves the den. Notice the difference in their voice after only one week. By two weeks of age, the pup's voice has changed even more. Their eyes and ears have opened, and their milk teeth are coming in. They'll begin to emerge from the den within the next week or two. Feeding habits for the adults during this time frame typically consist of insects, rodents, rabbits, and birds caught near the den site. Later when the pups are weaned, larger prey such as fawns and possibly livestock will be added as food demands increase. While the newborn pups are still in the ground, the male continues to hunt and patrol the denning area. He does not enter the den, and although the female rarely leaves the den during this time frame, the male does not bring food back directly to her while she's in the den. Instead, the male will hide or bury excess food near the den. The female will often find and eat what he stashed, making her time away from the newborn pups short. It's also common for one or more females from the previous year's litter to stay with the mated pair and help raise the pups. These females have no mate and are unbred. Only the alpha pair breed and raise pups within each territory. The pups are now nearing three weeks old and will be out of the den soon. With this brings on new changes in the couch life. We'll cover these changes on the next episode. Now stay tuned for a summary of setup and sound tips we can use for increasing our odds during denning season. Hopefully you learned something from this week's episode about coyote dens and coyote denning. Real quick, I want to just go over and kind of summarize some of the things that we can take away from the video that'll help us be better callers and killers during the denning time frame. We can use the coyotes behavior during this time in their life cycle, use that against them to help us call them in. Right off the bat, one of the things that probably one of the most important things is that coyotes don't travel very far during the denning time frame. They're right there around that den site protecting the den, protecting the pups, the females in the hole. She's not going anywhere. The males right there and any other coyotes from previous litters that are helping out are typically staying pretty close. So right off the bat, you need to know that you're going to have to get close to kill coyotes that time frame. I think that's why March, April, some of those time frames when the pups are still in the hole, those are notoriously some of the harder times to call coyotes. The reason being is that they're just not going to come to the call as far as they will other times of the year. So we got to get close. One other thing, and this will actually help us to call them and kill them, is that coyotes are extremely aggressive that time of the year. So if you do get close enough, odds are they're going to run right over the top of you. Howls, pup distress sounds being the go-to sounds on that. Something else to take away from the video, we were covering those pups from being newborn and the way they sound as a newborn to one week old, two week old, etc. And at MFK, we've actually got our sounds, our pup sounds categorized by age so that you can kind of match age classes of a pup to the time of the year. That worked really well for us last year, especially on a hunt I did in Illinois. We were able to use younger pup sounds or the appropriate age class of pup sounds for the time of the year, and it seemed to trigger those coyotes a little better than just playing random pup sounds. So I'll show you right quick. I've got a Fox Pro X24, one of the new Fox Pro X24s. It's right here on the ground below me, and then I'll show you the remote here. See if I can get this to focus right quick. I think you can see that. You see how those sounds are categorized one week, two week, three week, and then the names are actually the names of the pups that they were recorded off of, both male and female pups. And that goes on into older age class coyotes. We'll get into some of that stuff in next week's video and further videos, but let's jump back up here to the top and match those sounds. I'll just play a couple of them for you, and you'll see how well they match up with the sounds from the video. So we'll start out with one of the one week sounds. We'll jump down here to this one week roo pup, which is a one week old female pup. Let's unmute it. And if you notice, that is very similar to the sounds from the video when the pups are that age. Let's jump down here to a two week old. This is smack pup. This is a runt male, two weeks old. He's got a little more rasp in his voice. They also start getting a little growl in their voice at that time frame. You hear it there. You can tell how that voice changes. And then if you go on up to three weeks, cadence changes, a little bit different tone to their voice. So keep those things in mind and try to match sounds with the age class of the pups during that denning time frame, and I think that'll help you out. Any pup sound will work. We all know that, but I think matching those sounds will really help you out. Then if you want to progress, say you don't call something up and you want to progress, you can, but you can start subtle with those milder, more subtle pup distress sounds that match the age class, especially when those pups are in the hold, because that female's listening to that all the time. It'll really trigger them at that time frame because they're hearing that day in and day out. As far as sound sequences go, I'm typically going to be running howls because they're so territorial. You get close to them and you throw out a couple of howls, they can't hardly resist checking it out. Follow that with some pup distress sounds and you should be able to kill coyotes during the denning season with no problem, as long as you're close enough to them. Coyotes during that time frame are also, of course, doing a little hunting and gathering prey, but food is abundant right now. Everything's having babies, there's plenty of insects. The coyotes are actively catching stuff pretty easily. So prey distress is typically not on the top of the list for me in a sound sequence, but it doesn't hurt to throw that in there if you've run through your howls and your pup distress sounds and you still haven't called something up. You can mix those prey distress sounds in there anywhere during the sequence. It's not going to hurt anything and sometimes you may kill a coyote. So those are the main things that I think we can take away from the coyote denning season, things that we can use against them. Main thing being, get close to them. Know that they're there. Get close to them. Use those howls and pup distress sounds and match your pup distress sounds to the time of the year. I think that will trigger a few more coyotes for you. So anyway, I appreciate y'all watching. Be sure to tune in next week. We'll have another episode coming out and we're just going to continue on through the life cycle where these coyotes are actually out of the den. That will change the coyote's behavior some more and the calling will start getting really good. We'll get a little more aggressive with our calling tactics and our calling sequences, but we'll cover that in the upcoming episode. Appreciate y'all watching. Make sure you subscribe to our channel.