A few days before the birth, it is hardly recognizable, that the wolf is pregnant. She's as quick and agile as ever. After the exhausting Ranzzeit she has to go hunting again with the others.
The gestation period lasts 61 to 63 take. Only shortly before birth can you also recognize it from the outside, that it will be soon. With her front teeth, the wolf pulls out all the hair around the swollen teats on her belly. That's easy now too, because the thick winter fur is beginning to thin. The days are gradually getting warmer and in summer the hair is short.
You can also tell from the behavior of the she-wolf, that birth is imminent. Under the big rock, where she got her puppies last year, she shovels sand for hours, yellowed bones and dry feces. Again and again she crawls into the long cave passage and comes out backwards, until finally everything is clean and tidy. Then she digs a new den, not far from the old one, under the root plate of a tree fallen by the wind. Here she is satisfied with a deep hollow between the roots. The dense root canopy will protect the puppies from rain and cold. Finally, just in case, she expands an old fox's den on the bank of a dried-up arm of the river, continues the entrance and the chamber, the expanded space after the entrance tube, greater.
Meanwhile, the other wolves hunt alone, dragging chunks of food, which they bury around the main cave. Each time they are greeted enthusiastically by the she-wolf. From now on she is completely dependent on your help. Shortly before giving birth, she crawls into her cave, where she doesn't let anyone in. She wants to be alone when she gives birth.
As with all female mammals, the she-wolf begins labor through labour, hardly recognizable cramps, that cover the whole body in waves. At first they only come every now and then, then more and more often. From time to time she licks her back or her bare stomach.
The wolf cave
Only a pregnant wolf starts building a den. As the puppies grow older, a second will be added, sometimes other caves used. You are under big stones, under the roots of old or fallen trees, sometimes only in the sandy soil at the edge of the forest.
The cave entrances are about half a square meter. From there a passage leads into the ground. After about one meter, the corridor runs horizontally and ends after one to three meters in a round chamber, the actual cave.
But such a cave can also consist of a whole labyrinth of chambers and passages. Small and large courses lead away from the main course: big ones for the old wolves and narrow ones for the pups.
The latter the little ones have to dig themselves, because they are so tight, that no older animal could squeeze through there. Sometimes puppies dig in the tunnels for years, some of which are more than ten meters long. It can even be multiple floors with many at- and give descending connections.
Old bones are lying around in the wolf's den, but it is scrupulously clean in it, there is no feces and no smell of urine.