By golly, SE, if you can find any of those 2-and-12 coyotes, I need to import them to hereabouts to fill in the voids. That's probably how the coyotes around Scottsdale reproduce, but not in Kansas.
Rich can fill in a lot more than I'll put here, but coyotes typically have one litter per year. Number of puppies depends upon a lot of factors, including food availability, densities, age of the female, dam's health at time of breeding, first litter or some other number, etc. That 4-7 figure is pretty accurate. One litter, it was reported, numbered 19 years ago, but there are a lot of guys in the know that regard that as being 2 or more litters cohabitating in the same den site.
Dispersal, around here, occurs in late October and, from my vantage point, is marked by a sudden cessation of loud and raucous group yip-howling every night, mainly becasue ma and pa have booted the wild childs out. But, the young'uns don't always venture far. In fact, one or more may be kept around to serve as tenders with next Spring's litter, tending to the new whelps while the alpha pair are out and about. This past dennig season, an alpha pair I watched all winter had their litter in the den, and all five of last year's pups stayed within a mile of them. Only watched the situation one time and spoke with the rancher, but he never saw the adults interacting with that group of 5. Always maintained a distance of one half-mile or more. I howled one night after dark when I knew they were in the area and only the a-pair answered me back.
My experience with howling has found that our local litters may be booted out of the territorial core (recognizing that the "core" boundaries have become very vague and fluid by the dispersal time of the year), but that the litter stays together as a loosely knit "pack", but not so much in the conventional sense of a pack (no breeding/ whelping going on, not as clearly defined a heirarchy). While howling, I can bring the entire litter in out of what appears to be curiosity as much as anything. When the really cold weather hits and it becomes harder for the group to find sufficient food to feed everyone, they seem to single away and spend more time hunting on their own, for their own benefit. I may sound a little vague here, and sorry if I do, but a lot of what you ask is dependent upon local and regional conditions and what is observed here may not be the same in your backyard. Juts my .02 from anecdotal observations and personal experience.
Pup. I'm interested in hearing what Rich has to offer as commentary on the trend you're seeing toward more adult males. In my area, it's exactly the opposite. Our pop'n is in a growth mode recovering from mange infestation and we see a disproportionate number of YOY and 1 y/o's. Mature males have always been challenging to come by, but they're out there.
