How much does a coyote eat?

[KySongDog]

There has been some comments on the forum about coyotes eating chickens, rabbits, calves, fawns, turkey poults, pets, etc.  and basically anything else they can catch.  They also eat berries, persimmons, and other plant food. 

So, how much does an average coyote eat in a year's time?  How many rabbits, fawns, turkey poults, etc.?  I am trying to understand how much pressure the coyote puts on other species.  Do they hunt every day? Every other day? Once a week? 

Thanks guys.

[Carolina Coyote]

Semp, That is a real good question and I hope some one can provide that info. cc

[studabaka]

I don't know the answer either, but my guess would be that ...... with minor exception their goal is to eat every day and therefore they would be hunting/foraging most every day. What their success rate is and what they eat probably varies widely based on the environment they are in and the time of year. Given their adaptability and survivability I would guess that more days than not they are successful in eating. I also think that they have an instinctual attribute that drives them to vary their diet so as to benefit from a 'balanced' intake of a wide range of stuff.

Net..... an average intake would be an interesting number, but probably has a fairly high standard deviation with very few actually adhering to the average on a regular basis.

We need Higgins.

[keekee]

Coyotes are also opportunistic and will eat what makes it self available to them at the time. Several years back when I was running a trap line every day, plus calling every chance I got. I skinned every coyote cough or shot. After skinning them I would check the contents of there stomach. And kept records on what they eat and how full they were.

Every coyote I checked in a two year period had at least a half full stomach. I never shot or trapped on that was empty over the two year period.


Here is a little info from a study I found on the net a while back:

http://www.stevesrealfood.com/research/foodhabits.html


I think allot of what they eat depends on what time of year it is and is also controlled by the weather as well. Also how much they feed depends on the weather and time of year, denning season, several things.

There are time of the year here when all you will find in there scat is plants, and grass hoppers, other times of the year it meat and bones. I noticed out west in AZ even with the ton of Jack Rabbits they have that most of the scat was all mesquite beans.

When the weather turns off real bad and cold here the coyotes move and feed almost all the time, when its hot, they don't move much at all during the daylight. I have seen then feeding on road kill right beside the major roads here in the summer at night feeding on road kill deer.


Brent

[RShaw]

I remember running a coyote in a badger hole on the side of a bank. It was winter time and there were a couple of escape holes above the bank on the flat. At that time, coyotes were worth some money, so we stuck big sticks in the upper holes to block them and set two traps at the entrance on the bank. Snow was on and we checked those traps for a couple of days. There was no activity at all. We pulled out the upper sticks and noticed they had been chewed on. Somehow we had blocked the coyote from entrance. We got out the axes and started chopping through the frozen ground at the upper hole. We would work on chopping every day after we got the chores done and we would block the holes each day when we finished. After 19 days of working on and off,we reached the main tunnel and I was lowered head first into it. With a flashlight, I was able to see the coyote was in good shape. A little thin, but in good shape none the less. I shot that coyote with my pistol and twisted him out with some barb wire. At least this coyote could go quite a spell with nothing to eat at all. We all guessed he got some moisture from the roots of the trees that were along the edge of the hole. I once read a study which said a coyote could go 30 days with one full belly.

Randy

[Jimmie in Ky]

They feed everyday and will feed on anything that is a source of protien and fats. Even the honey locust pods are on the menu. Those honey locust pods are what a lot of you saw in the scats during the LBL hunts. An adult will consume a couple of pounds each day and will gorge themselves with a large kill because they have it at the time. As much as seven or eight pounds of deer meat at one sitting , each! If they are taking down larger animals they will take two or three each week unless things change or they are stopped. It all depends on the skills of the animals and the availability of food sources.

This year will see them eating a lot of meat during the winter here. That solid freeze we had came when many species of plants were blooming and we lost almost all the mast crop this time. So the voles you saw crossing the road in the early morning light won't be as plentiful this time. Jimmie

[GC]

Coyotes are also selective feeders.  If they find a food source they really like, they may lay off other things and concentrate on that one food source while it is temporarily available.  Sometimes that is by chance, say a deer struck by a vehicle that cripples off into the woods and dies.  Coyotes may feed on that deer and not actively hunt for mice, rabbits, or other game until that carcass has been picked over.  They'll gorge themselves off that carcass.  It may be seasonal food, like persimmons.  They seem to love those sweet frost ripened persimmons around here when they drop off the tree.  To the point of gorging on those and the coyote scat won't have a bit of hair or bone matter in it.  When we have years of overly high squirrel populations I've picked through coyote scat and seen nothing but squirrel bones and claws in the pile. 

An example, once I was running and gunning, driving the truck along through the snow down an old Forest Service gravel road calling down old logging traces and various ridgetops.  Especially if they had tracks coming and going.  I'd stop and hot foot it down the ridge until I had the truck out of sight behind me and was several hundred yards from the road.  I'd hike in to a likely looking spot, set-up and call, then beat it back out to the truck and down the road until I found the next likely looking place.  I was trying to get as many stands in as possible before 11AM when I had to quit hunting that day.  I found a ridge that looked like a major highway intersection.  There was coyote tracks, deer, turkey, squirrel, rabbit, I mean this ridgetop was beat down with tracks in the snow.  I could see a clear-cut several hundred yards away and figured that'd be a good place to find a set-up.  As I was walking in about 75 yards from the truck I stepped over a log in the trail and on the other side was a dead, chewed up shrew laying on top of the six inches of snow.  From the sign it was obvious a coyote had dug the thing up.  I was amazed the shrew wasn't eaten!  It was cold and we had a good snow storm a few days before.  I figured coyotes would have been plenty hungry and working for a meal.  To find this shrew dug up and laying on top of the snow really puzzled me. 

I went on down and found a place to set-up at the upper end of the logyard left over from the clear-cutting operation.  About five minutes into my calling with the Sceery AP-6 I caught movement and along the ridgetop came a coyote.  However, he wasn't charging in as is normal for my coyotes here.  He wasn't even breaking a trot.  In fact, he was sneaking along, almost tree to tree.  I busted him with the Benelli .12 gauge at about thirty yards as he was trying to get along the downwind slope of the ridge.  The ridge was narrow and he couldn't get far enough over the side to get my scent without loosing visual contact with the place he heard the sounds coming from.  I kept calling another five minutes, then I hit some high pitched pup distress type sounds on the variable pitch call.  Afterward I sat still and was watching.  I was thinking of the unusual behavior of the coyote and remembered it seemed small to me.  That's when I realized there was another coyote coming and this one was on the lope straight down the ridge and into the logyard right in front of me.  I shot him head on at about 15 yards as he was still loping toward me. 

I was tickled, a two coyote day is good stuff for me in the big woods.  This second coyote was a large male.  The first was a small male, probably a young of the year fully grown coyote.  I theorized that with the numbers of tracks I was seeing, there were a lot of coyotes in this area.  That first younger coyote was slipping in because he didn't want to get a butt whipping from an old dog like the second coyote.  Made sense, though why were there so many coyotes stacked up like this in December?  I began to think about that uneaten shrew.  I followed the ridgetop on down and tracked through the snow to try to find where these boys had come from.  Right off the point of the ridge in the hollar lay a dead doe whitetail.  It was a mess around her.  Obviously several coyotes were making a easy living from the deer.  I couldn't tell the exact cause of her death, the scene around her was a mess of hair, some blood, ect.   But if the coyotes didn't kill the deer they sure were enjoying the venison.  Which leads me back to the shrew.  The only reason I can possibly think for a coyote to leave that shrew laying on top of the snow is because the coyote was so gorged on venison that it simply wasn't interested enough to swallow the shrew.     

[possumal]

I have read in several articles and magazines that a coyote needs to eat 3 lbs. a day to sustain his life. That may be true, but I would think it depends a lot on the size of the coyotes.  It has always been borderline amazing to me how opportunistic they are, especially on certain foods.  They evidently know that persimmons have something in them that is extra good for them, but they won't feed on them until they reach a certain stage of ripeness.  A lot of hunters do not believe that the coyotes teach their pups to feed on certain foods, but I don't believe that for a minute.  Based on basic rules of genetics, like produces like, which has been proven in breeding practices of certain breeds of dogs, cattle, and other species.  A good example is that not all coyotes kill calves, but once they start killing them in an area, they pass those tendencies to their offspring.  Their adaptability to various foods for survival is what seperates them from wolves, and I believe that is the main reason they can easily live well in areas where a wolf can't live.

[Jimmie in Ky]

I will second what Al is saying. The coyote's inate curiosity is it's learning tool. It observes, smells and taste's the object, and much like a cat they will play with the object in question. I also believe they teach and direct the young.

I once had a large male that was a major pain in my fanny and every farmer in the area. I could get rid of his mates, but never got a clear shot at him. Each time a mate was killed the damage stopped for a while. But by the next fall they were at it again.

In the LBl many groups work in a pack style when things are tough. The adults taught th young and they moved on to teach their mates and young until it is a behavior that is well known in that particular area. It is one not seen elsewhere all that much. I have been told by biologists that coyotes just don't do that, that is how rare this behavior is in coyotes

Even with hunting pairs you will see things that are hard to believe. I have seen one mate act as decoy so the other could make the kill unoticed.

When it comes to filling it's belly the coyote will figure out a way to do it. Jimmie