UKC Forums - Northern Guys ?

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Posted by Okie Dawg on 11-02-2010 02:38 AM:

Northern Guys ?

I am wondering how many kittens do your sows have on average in the heavy populated areas up there?Seams like here the most common number you see with a sow is 3.

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Posted by Regan H on 11-02-2010 02:41 AM:

kittens

up hear in nw. Ia. 3 to 6

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Posted by Larry Atherton on 11-02-2010 02:49 AM:

Average is 4, but I have seen as many as 6.

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Posted by brady8687 on 11-02-2010 03:00 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Larry Atherton
Average is 4, but I have seen as many as 6.

I would say about the same.

Posted by josh on 11-02-2010 03:46 PM:

Early on I would say 4-6...This time of year I would go with a solid 3.

Posted by Rick Ennen on 11-02-2010 04:21 PM:

2-3 kittens treed is typical this time of year.

I saw a litter of 6 on the road back in August.

Posted by Riverview2 on 11-02-2010 07:00 PM:

In SE Wi we see 4-6 kits

Posted by john Duemmer on 11-02-2010 07:26 PM:

I dont know how many they start out with but by the time we see them out with the kits in the trees usually 3 and sometimes 4.

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Posted by Big Bawler on 11-02-2010 07:31 PM:

ya i agree 3 -6 but mostly around 4

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Posted by Okie Dawg on 11-02-2010 07:42 PM:

Now I see why you have a bigger population of coon up there. Wish I could get my hands on a few of your sows and sneek them down here.lol

Posted by HOBO on 11-02-2010 07:46 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by Okie Dawg
Now I see why you have a bigger population of coon up there. Wish I could get my hands on a few of your sows and sneek them down here.lol

the main reason they have so many coons is food food and more food. Although I do wonder what they eat once all the crops have been gathered as they sure don't have enough woods to keep them in Acorns the rest of the year.

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Posted by Okie Dawg on 11-02-2010 08:46 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by HOBO
the main reason they have so many coons is food food and more food. Although I do wonder what they eat once all the crops have been gathered as they sure don't have enough woods to keep them in Acorns the rest of the year.

We have a lot of feeder crops but our coon arent as big as there's. The bigger the dog the more pups. I figure it works the same with coon. I think it is just a bigger breed of coon. Just like a B&T compaired to a small terrior breed.
We have a lot of corn,beans,milo and plenty of woods in a lot of places. One thing about the winter though. After they cut corn there is still a lot in the field for coon to eat. Even after they work the field there is still a lot for the coon here.

Posted by warn on 11-02-2010 10:57 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by HOBO
the main reason they have so many coons is food food and more food. Although I do wonder what they eat once all the crops have been gathered as they sure don't have enough woods to keep them in Acorns the rest of the year.

michigan has plenty of woods and there is lots of corn and beans that were missed by the combine or just went thru the seaves..

plus they love to hang around most farms and eat outta the feeders or silage bags not to mention all the natural food still out there til they go into their winters nap............

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Posted by Okie Dawg on 11-02-2010 11:07 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by warn
michigan has plenty of woods and there is lots of corn and beans that were missed by the combine or just went thru the seaves..

plus they love to hang around most farms and eat outta the feeders or silage bags not to mention all the natural food still out there til they go into their winters nap............

You know that could be part of the reason they grow bigger there and have more young. Ours don't take the winter nap. Ours is running all winter long.

Posted by walkercash on 11-02-2010 11:19 PM:

Average is probably 4 seen as many as 7. Pulled two litters of 7 out of attics this spring.

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Posted by DBW on 11-02-2010 11:41 PM:

4 to 6 is what u see around here when they first come out in the spring thats north west indiana

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Posted by Oak Ridge on 11-03-2010 01:25 AM:

I have to agree with Shawn. Average of with the largestI have ever seen was8.

It its not all about an abundance of feed..... Out timber is bigger trees and IBM most places older hardwood trees. That means more denning areas. The combination off more feed and more den sites is the real secret to a large populaton.

Having a bunch of high quality feed at the time that the cubs are weaned is also very beneficial to a high survival rate of the young.

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Posted by Two Toes on 11-03-2010 01:38 AM:

Bergmans rule explains the larger critters in the north aposed to their southern kin folk.

Litters depend on the availability of feed & denning sites. 4-6 pretty much is the rule here.

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Posted by Okie Dawg on 11-03-2010 01:44 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Oak Ridge
I have to agree with Shawn. Average of with the largestI have ever seen was8.

It its not all about an abundance of feed..... Out timber is bigger trees and IBM most places older hardwood trees. That means more denning areas. The combination off more feed and more den sites is the real secret to a large populaton.

Having a bunch of high quality feed at the time that the cubs are weaned is also very beneficial to a high survival rate of the young.

I agree all of that is important but I still think that sleeping most of the winter and most of all the differant breed of coon has to be an important factor. We too have good feed source and an over abundance of den trees but ours don't have as many kittens and don't get as big. That may change though. All but the breed of coon we have anyway. We haven't been planting this much feeder crops till just a few years ago and it does seem like we are haveing more litters a year. There not bigger but there are more of them. I am thinking the adult sows are haveing 2 litters a year and the kittens are haveing one there first year if they are born in early spring.

Posted by Bill(Chew) on 11-03-2010 01:56 AM:

The biggest factor limiting litter size is early spring nutrition. The coons up north still have crops in the fields and night crawlers. Our crops are disced in and are gone by early winter and we don't have night crawlers. Those worms are high protien and are very abundant. A well fed sow will produce more kittens and can support them better.

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Posted by Okie Dawg on 11-03-2010 02:05 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by Bill(Chew)
The biggest factor limiting litter size is early spring nutrition. The coons up north still have crops in the fields and night crawlers. Our crops are disced in and are gone by early winter and we don't have night crawlers. Those worms are high protien and are very abundant. A well fed sow will produce more kittens and can support them better.

We have the same thing but smaller coon. A smaller animal doesn't have as much space to carry as many kittens as a bigger sow.
We still have a lot of cow peas not harvested and corn laying on the ground. We have went to no till drill here so the crops don't get turned under till planting season. Some will lightly work the ground to get it to take more water. They allso have lots of grawdads here and berry trees, vines and plants like polk.

Posted by Oak Ridge on 11-03-2010 02:16 PM:

Grady,

Having hunted in Oklahoma, I can tell you from personal experience that your terrain (size and type of timber) and selection of feed is NOT EVEN CLOSE to what I look at every day.

I can easily take you and show you some trees that are 175 foot tall, and about 150 years old. They will easily be 5 feet in diameter at the base of the tree.....

I can take you to the 12 acres of timber across the road from my house, and show you not fewer that 20 den trees that I know of...there is a creek (actually a drainage ditch) that flows through it so there is constant water....there are crops planted on three sides of it as well. The trees consist of sugar maple, wild cherry (an important feed source for our coon), about a million mulberry trees surrounding the patch, and along the fence rows leading to and from the woods. (an even more important food source in early spring when the cubs are being weaned), poplar, sycamore (nearly 100% of these trees over 25 years old are hollow and serve as den trees) with some white and red oak trees scattered in amongst the hickory.....

See, it's not just about having corn fields here.....in reality, we have food available to the coon nearly year around. Our coon build up a layer of fat that is at this time of year as much as 2 to 3 inches thick. Early in the year (feb/march) the coon start feeding on lost grain in the fields...then move to night crawlers and early berries (did I mention that we have raspberry patches that cover several acres in some places?) Shortly after that, the mulberries provide a high calorie feast for the month of may and part of June? Between the mulberries and corn is the wild cherry tree...these provide another high calorie fest until the field corn turn to "milk" stage....like a sweet corn. About that time, the wheat fields start ripening, and yes..coon like wheat as well. We don't have much of that really in this area, but oats are another important feedstuff.

By the time the corn is hardening, the cubs are weaned....they stay in family groups and often stay in the den with the family.....but continue to grow....

The bottom line is that we have a LOT of LARGE quality denning sites. We don't have paper mills that will be happy to chip the hollow trees for pulp...we have hardwood production, which means that the hollow trees get to stand and remain as denning sites. Many times when timber is harvested, most of the trees in a tract will be cut, with ONLY the dens that remain standing. In the end, it is late winter, when it gets really cold that we start seeing attrition due to lack of den sites....most of our cubs make it to about a year old at LEAST before they see hard times.....

Trust me...build large nesting boxes, and make sure that there is water and feed available, and you will see an increase in coon population over a two year period!

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Posted by Larry Atherton on 11-03-2010 03:15 PM:

Okie,

Years ago I remember hunters in southern states were advertising for live northern coons. While many northern coon did make it down south, it only took one or 2 generations for them to loose their size.

The difference in body size has to do with the manner that a larger body size holds heat better in extreme cold temperatures than a smaller body size. You can see this by winter kill of animals up here. Nine times out of ten, it isn't the large heavy ones that die during the winter, but the small young ones.

You may not want to accept that colder climates means larger body sizes but it is a well accepted theory in scienitific communities.

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Posted by Okie Dawg on 11-03-2010 04:09 PM:

Joe
That sounds really pretty and I would love to hunt in it just once in my life.
I take it you must had been in eastern Okla. Oklahoma is as differant as night and day from east to west. I live in the west. We don't have any woods taken for papermills or anything else in this part of Okla. It is flat crop land with a lot of creeks and trees along the creeks. There are plenty of hollows not being used but up till about 4-5 years ago we didn't grow anything but wheat and after it was cut the ground was worked and stayed bare till next planting. So the coon ran out of berries in the winter but now they have crops all summer and the berries stay a lot longer. They have corn, millow, cattle cubes, liqued feed, craw dads, mulberries, and a lot of other things to eat and our winters arent bad here so they are active all year.
I have noticed they are putting on a lot more waight than they use to. But we haven't had the food source long. The farmers haven't been doing the no till long. I think we had some of our coon get killed with bad corn and distemper this year. The government made the farmers turn the bad corn under but they let it stay in the field for a long time. Then when they did there was still a lot on top.
We don't have nothing like your part of the country though.

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