looks almost like a really big pile of caterpillar frass....poo of some kind?

That's weird.
It almost looks like a pile of pelleted chicken or cat food, or some kind of feed.

It is weird. These little piles of things are always about 2 or 3" in diameter and dirt colored. I'm sure they're not feed pellets.

The wild animals I see in my little yard--in the center of town--are birds, squirrels, toads, opossums, caterpillars, other insects, spiders, rats (that my cats have caught), lizards and once, a big turtle that I relocated to a creekside area.

Maybe I'll take it to the county extension office and see what they say. Not that it really matters...I'm just curious.

Do you think its possible that the animal keeps using the same place to poop each time? It seems to be too much for one pooping....and the center stuff looks to be a different color.....like its newer?? I'm not familiar with some of those animals you mentioned, (what their poop looks like). Can you do a scat search on the internet?

I'm sorry I'm stuck on the "feed" possibility........sometimes small animals like mice, chipmunks, etc., collect feed like this. I'm tempted to put a pile of my chicken feed on the ground and take a picture of it. It looks just like your picture! I've been doing a search on scat, and haven't found any that looks like that. Seems like a strange way to poop...although I guess rabbits poop like that, but bigger and less at a time and rounder...
Have you ever seen tomato hormworm poop? Its like perfectly rectangular....so I guess its possible.
Be sure to let us know what the county extension people say!

is there any sign of a burrow near this, even small holes?

got me realy curious......

Yes, if it's scat, it must have been quite a party, lol!

I did do a web-search before posting the original message and didn't find any pictures of anything both the same shape and size.

Whatever is causing it must be coming around at night, because this is right out in the open next to a path I use several times a day and I think I'd notice if something was sitting there for any length of time.

I just tried smooshing some of this stuff up to see what it's made of...looks like soil particles to me. And there is a burrow right at the edge of one of these piles of pellets. It's about 1/4" diameter and goes down under the pellets as far as I could reach with a car key. I'd like to think that it's from an earthworm, but I hardly ever find any in my soil...unfortunately.

I found this site. It looks like it might be deer poop. Maybe young deer poop??
See what you think...

Here is a link that might be useful: deer poop

P.S. I find it weird that such big animals poop such little stuff!!

That is odd, isn't it, Catherine...should we call it genetic constipation? Never seen any deer here in town, though, and I'd recognize the footprints.

Now I'm thinking (hoping) it's earthworms since I find this stuff in my beds where I've added organic materials. The rest of my soil is very sandy, which I've read is not appealing to them.

You GUYS!!!! They are earthworm castings. They can be variable from location to location, but there's no question that that's what they are.

Deer poop, lololololllll

Here is a link that might be useful:

Rhizo.....did you look at that link I posted? I couldn't believe that deer pooped so small!
I did an internet image search for worm castings, and they were long things.
Are "castings" poop?? Is treelover's pic of the poop, just one "sitting"?????? That must be one very looooooong
earthworm!! lol! Why are they called castings and not scat?

LMBO @ rhizo!!!
I knew they were earthworm castings...but the poop thread was kinda funny...hehehe!

maybe a close-up would have helped me out....but I never noticed earthworms here pooping in the same place over and over again.
That's quite a pile.
Maybe you have the Cadillac of Worms-Red Wrigglers-of WKRP in CINCINNATI fame......

catherinet, 'castings' is a term used for earthworm poop.

Earthworms gather large amounts of organic matter from the surface of the soil and take it down to their tunnels to ingest, along with some soil to help with 'digestion'. They come up to the surface in order to defecate, which is done the 'old fashioned way', via the usual pathway.