Thinking it's a shotgun blast, but there oddly wasnt any pellets in the hide, or fell out during skinning, like some of the others I've skinned. What do you think? Sat dead in a snare for one night.

Had decent looking fur. Once I flip it I can send another pic. Not even any dead fleas on it once I sprayed it with raid. Could these be really bad tick bites? The back of the neck was good. None of this anywhere else. Would be odd for such a perfect circle pattern from a shotgun and it would have had to have been shot from above that's why I'm questioning it.

Mange!

Anyone frequenting your land? Someone coulda seen it in the snare, and well, you know.

I was wondering bite marks from another coyote. Ive seen a few chewed on in footholds.

When you have a ECM from a tick bite infected with lyme's disease you see the skin swollen and red. Have posted picture of what it looks like before.

I dont have a picture. But it did appear slightly swollen and you can see the blood in the skin still there. Was very tough as well. Almost like scar tissue. Chunky kind of. Felt like little knots as the fleshing knife scraped on them, didnt flesh real hard over the spots because I was worried they would catch and I would cut through it.

You didn’t say if it’s a male or female? I would think that damage is from bite marks, it looks like there are healed wounds there also. Females will get bit up pretty badly from the males. If male then I would guess it’s a subordinate or a transient that’s getting tuned up.
I don’t have any experience with mange damage, so can’t comment on that.
That is a good job of fleshing!

It's not mange. I've put up several coyotes like that through the years. Those are bite marks and scaring from older bite marks.

Either bite marks or a bird hunter peppered it’s butt after jumping it out of a coulie. I see that a lot on my coyotes out here.

There are times when a trapped coyote will get bit while In the trap. And it's normally on the butt end where the coyote can't fight back. That's what this looks like.

Hey, I finally agree with "The Beav"

Ticks.he has had them for a while.

Looks like the start of sarcroptic mange. The stuff is very contagious to all canines. Even your Dog.

I'm thinking bite marks. I've caught several this year in the same condition. Feels like scar tissue when you scrape over with the fleshing knife

This is the fur side. Combed the hair so it is pointing upward. At first I though it was missing guard hairs above the tail, but then I did the same thing to some nice heavy prime clean ones and they had the same type of fur pattern at the base. This is also a pup.

What does the belly side look like?

The forceps are showing a tick attachment from the underside of the hide. You can actually see the mouth piece of the tick through the skin. These ticks all were tested for Lyme and were positive.(CDC did the test) This coyote came from the Peace Gardens area near the Sask/MB/ND boarder some 8 years ago.
The area is probably quite sore so there could be self-inflicted bite marks of the animal trying to remove the ticks. Some ticks were splattered on the fur side so biting did occur. This coyote was shot.

The small white dot is the mouth piece.

Eagles

Update to this : I sent the pictures to our game and fish department and the states wildlife veterinarian commented that in their expert opinion this is physical damage from trauma, whether bite marks from something or shotgun. Not mites or fleas.