Here they will be mating up by the end of December and will breed over a couple of months' time starting in January with the older females cycling first and the younger females later maybe as late as March. They carry the pups for around 62 days the same as most domestic dogs do. Sometime about 3 or 4 weeks before they pup, they will be looking to set up a den for the pups to be born in and will be cleaning out holes till they find the one that they feel happy about being a safe and undisturbed one. If they see, smell or feel bothered by humans here they won't use that den hole. So, for me it would be around the end of march that they would be getting several den holes cleaned out. They don't always use the exact same holes every year but there will be dens in the same general area year after year here, generation after generation of coyote will come back to the same general area for the same reasons to have their pups. This is just what I have observed over many years of denning coyote and red fox where I live. I have taken a den with 6 pups in it as early as April the 8th and heavy female coyote as late as the end of May depending on how the winter was, the food base and if they had disease in the coyote population. An easy open winter with plenty of food and they cycled earlier, a hard cold winter with less food for them and them not being as healthy they tend to cycle later in the year. The last several dry years with few rodents and there have been several female coyotes that didn't cycle and have pups in my area or if they did have pups, it was smaller litters.
