Caught one today that was rubbed up pretty bad. It didn't come home. Had one a couple weeks ago that had a small rub each side, Guy said skin it.
What causes rubbing? I didn't see any last year, even into the middle of January.

Mites are ur problem

I caught one last year about this time too that looked like that and I was told it was probably lice. It is a junker, but still a good catch.

I caught a big fat male today. Pelt looks great. Called one Saturday. Most of the fur looked good but the tail was beginning to look a little rubbed. She got skinned and thrown in with the rest of them.

Yep biting lice I believe...sad to go through the time and effort to make a catch then have to pitch.

Now this is most likely a different rub from the pic above but the two worst looking coyotes I've caught this year were full of burs, stickers, and other sticky seeds. My best guess was that they were scratching at the things stuck in their fur and rubbing their guard hairs out in the process.

Wear and tear.

Comes from many different variables. Many.


These include but are not limited to:

Movement
Habitat abrasiveness
Fur texture
Weather
Etc.



Every region and coyote is different.

Looks like sarcoptic mange, it’s a mite that spreads like wild fire.

In my experience, it's hair cutting lice.
That's your culprit in many of the cases.
There is mange, but it has a different look and seldom strikes dead center of the back, as pictured.
Mites, but again, same as above.
Now, (the star on ) barb wire will pull guard hair from the back, generally the hackles, as the animal ducks beneath the strand of wire.
If you have enough barb wire fences in your area, you will see some damage at times.

Im pretty sure thats from lice, not mange and definitely not from barb wire. When you see it between the shoulders like that you can almost be sure its lice, not rubbing. Rubbing will remove the guard hairs and you can see in this picture that the under wool is removed.

Guys,
Thanks for all the answers. I ruled out mange right away. Tail was full, and no missing fur on the feet either. No neck scratching. I never heard of the lice problem. I did consider fences, you see it on deer backs sometimes during the hunting season from going under fences.

Goes by a lot of different names , shoulder mites is what I have heard it called . Starts right where you see it in the picture . Not mange for sure .

Thought I would share a picture, this is obviously an extreme case (and the coyote would have never came home with me if it wasnt covered in ice and snow and I couldnt see how bad it was). You can actually see the lice in the close up picture, they are the little white/tan spots. Smaller than a flea. In the other picture you can see what the fur used to look like before it got infested.

Yep, I just "ditched" another one today, had about 20% of the guard hairs left and wooly almost sticky feeling under fur. The tail looked like it was made of sheep's wool. Shame as it was a nice pale dog with a clear white belly. I'm at 6 out of 10 this year that have this type of condition, lice, mites, manage whatever it is. I wonder if our warm mild winter is making the problem worse ? Never saw this until last year and this year.

I threw one away yesterday that was just "rubbed". I didn't see any of the under fur disappearance like the first one I had in the picture. Just missing a lot of guard hairs kind of all over.

I get some every year and like was stated about barb wire fence and also was told that rub on the trees also will do it. I put them up anyways. I let the buyer see how much they are worth. If it had the mange you could tell right away most of the time.I had one that had it this season and dump it. I did caught one years ago that did not show the mange and after all said and done I got it and also one of my coydogs at the time.but got ride of it in about 3 days.

This is from a coyote scratching with his back leg between his shoulder blades. Candidate for the burn pile... about half of mine have some version of this or mange.

Looks like shoulder mites. Some can be fixed some can't.

Frozen hanging by the back legs



Skinned hanging by the nose



Cut out patch and sewn back together



Dried and off the board



Some coyotes you can fix some you can't !

Same here about 50% last two years are like that.

Heres one from this morning in southern illinois.