what the heck is that?

Here is a little tasty looking object I found on the trail along the bluffs to diving last week. What is it? I know, do you?

Looks like scat from an animal that just ate a furball.

Close, real close.

Why man......that's coyote dung.
Key identifier is the hair density.

Skunks, raccoons, possums, dogs.....you don't find that hair-density in their dung deposits.

When you look at it closely, pick it apart with sticks (***), you can kind of "sort it" for coarseness and length......which translates pretty quickly to: A) mouse, B) rabbit, and C) other.

***don't touch dung with your fingers.....not any kind.  Often filled with nematods (round worms).   But natures chopsticks are effective.

Judd

Yup my guess is Mutt shit!!!... (Coyote), ive got some calls,lets go get them!!!...Andy

My guess is owl pellets.

But then I've never seen coyote dung.

My guess is owl pellets.

But then I've never seen coyote dung.

Bingo for northern boy!

whoo-hoo!

From the lack of bones and teeth that are in owl pellets I thought it was coyote crap.
Did you dissect it?

Them dungers....they don't be owl casts....

You don't find owl casts in the open.
Mostly only near the owl nest...only under "roostable" structure.
Owl fly home...digest food while roosting...then regurgitate casts.
Except for large prey (rabbits) which they tear apart they eat animals whole.

Casts don't have that regular tubular shape...exactly onaccounta they
have completely whole, undigested bones in 'em.

Here's an interesting dung & "enviromental movement story."
Well, interesting to me.

Garbage trucks transport live animals to environments they've never been.
I've seen this only with raccoons, but I suppose it happens to other species.
Raccoons get into dumsters.   Dumsters are emptied "whole" into the trucks.
The truck goes off to it's next pickup.
The raccoons, desperate to escape, exit the truck anywhere it stops.

So a colony of raccoons has established at 5,000-foot elevation Odell Lake, Oregon.......a lake at the top of Oregon's Willamette Pass, where winter snows typically average 5-feet.

The raccoons survive in the crawl spaces under resort cabins.
Their source of food is the lake-margin and outlet creek....which supports a huge population of crawfish.

So in the summer when a vacationer (me) goes down to the dock to launch his boat in the morning, the dock-surface is populated with many fresh daily piles of raccoon dung  (Dung is today's subject...the dung-part of this post is why I'm telling you this raccoon/garbage-truck story now) and THAT DUNG consists ENTIRELY of crayfish shell-pieces.

Like man, ENTIRELY.    It's so completely made up of crayfish, it's red in color.

The raccoons would be unable to survive the high-mountain winter at that location, except that with their intelligence and quick raccoon-adaptability they've "found" the crayfish.....   

It's both amazing and pretty neat.

Judd

I hate to disagree with ya but I have found them out in the open at the trail by Jenner with all forms of bones and even a skull once. If it were in fact coyote scat the bones would have been dissolved by the stomach acids. Craig

I am voting Coyote poop as well.  I have collected many pellets, and that doesn't look like one.  The fact that you found it on a trail has me thinking even stronger that its poop...they do that to mark their territory.     

Uh, that was me...sorry guys. (better check my diet...) 

OK, how about this:  an owl big enough to eat a coyote?

Kidding aside, this is interesting. I've never been much for things scatological but this is an interesting thread.

Uh, that was me...sorry guys. (better check my diet...) 

Maybe try chewing more...

Its definitely not owl pallets!!!, im going to stick to coyote....Andy