Coyote Yipps

Imagine having to keep up with the nutritional needs not only of yourself — that must be hard enough — but also of FIVE ravenous pups you’ve brought into the world! The nutritional needs of growing pups is tremendous!

This top video shows a mother coyote nursing four of her five 4-week-old pups. She is ever so patient through the frenzy of hungry little stomachs! I timed this feeding: it was done and over in just one minute and forty seconds: that’s how long a nursing session is.

I noted that within just three weeks of their birth, Mom was already bringing in semi-solid food in her stomach which she regurgitated for the pups: her milk just wasn’t enough for them.

In this next video, below, youngsters are poking at Mom’s mouth: that’s where they know solid food comes from. Young pups are ALWAYS hungry and they pester Mom until she delivers! Watching it for any length of time makes you wonder how she copes with it.

In the next few weeks, they will switch entirely to regurgitated food. I’ve seen regurgitated food continued to be brought in — though much less frequently as the pups continue to grow and become capable of hunting for themselves — for up to a year in some families: I wonder if this is a way of just keeping those pups around? Mom and Dad will do this as as they teach their brood how to hunt and where to find food.

Here is a video showing a different mother last year, regurgitating for her four-month-old pups in August. And here is a posting of a dad regurgitating food for his yearlings.