A hare is a herbivorous fur mammal that belongs to the order of the hare-like and lives on almost all continents. These representatives can be met even in the steppes and deserts. And naturally, each species adapts to the conditions in which it exists. How do they survive in the wild? What do hares of different breeds eat at home and in their natural habitat?
What do rabbits eat?
What do rabbits eat?
The diet of hares is diverse, especially in the summer, although it all depends on where this wild animal lives. Eared mainly feed on plant foods - the roots and bark of trees, leaves and stems of plants, vegetables and fruits, with pleasure eat young shoots of shrubs. In spring, with a deficiency of mineral salts, the hare can eat up the soil and even swallow stones.
Basically, hares are considered vegetarians, but there are cases when they ate the meat of partridges caught in hunting traps.
Varieties of hares
For us, these are small harmless fluffy animals that live in the forest and, when danger approaches, quickly disappear from sight.
In February, hares begin to appear offspring. As soon as the animal was born, the mother feeds the little rabbit and runs away from the hole, so as not to attract predators with its smell. After a couple of days, she returns, feeds the hungry offspring again and runs away. This thick milk is enough for babies for several hours. A week later, teeth appear in the rabbit.
Previously, the hare lays in the mink grass, which the hare and begin to feed in about 10 days. By about a month old offspring no longer need their mother and begins to live independently.
In Russia, you can meet 4 types of hares:
- white hare;
- hare;
- tolai;
- Manchu hare.
In nature, there are 32 species in total according to one version, according to scientific disputes, adding to this species both rabbits and pika, 45 species. Meet some of them.
Hare - white hare
He lives in the forests of Russia, South America, Mongolia and many other countries. In winter, to be less noticeable in the snow, it changes color to white, and only the ends of the ears remain black. In summer, the jumper is gray.
What does the hare eat in the forest? In the summer diet contains plant foods: herbs, dandelions, cereals, mountain ash, blueberries, mushrooms. Eared cabbage feasts on the fields, animals in the garden can even gnaw onions and carrots. In autumn, white hares feed on branches of shrubs, and in the winter it is harder to feed in the forest, so they eat the bark of trees, such as willow, aspen and birch.
Even the eared of this species can feed on the horns of an elk dumped in the forest. If possible, they dig up berries from under the snow, feed on hay harvested from stacks near the villages. In the spring, when fresh grass appears on the lawns, white hares flock eat this delicacy.
This animal leads a nocturnal lifestyle, so during the day it often lies, and at night it gets its own food, covering long distances.
Hare - Roe
Get to know this hare. Mermaid - large individuals of brown color with hairs of different shades. They live in Kazakhstan, Turkey, Iran.
Crayfish willingly eat cereals, chicory, dandelions. If the russians settle on agricultural fields, then they damage the crop by eating fruits, vegetables, and melons. In Australia, for example, hares are declared pests that pose a serious danger.
In winter, a hare - a brown hare gnaws at the bark of trees and shrubs. Unlike the hare - the white hare, this species feasts on the bark of oak, maple, and broom, periodically paws the seeds of plants and fruits from under the snow. In the spring, they often damage the roots of shrubs, eat leaves, young shoots and stems of plants.
Hare - tolai
Hares are not large in size, legs and ears are longer than those of other individuals. A representative of this species lives in deserts and in the Russian steppes, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan.
What do hares eat in nature? In winter, they move closer to the settlements. In the mountains they descend into valleys where there is no snow cover. The main food is the green parts of plants. In spring, the diet is made up of roots and tubers of herbaceous plants (they eat with pleasure also young grass).
Ephemers grow in the desert - grassy annual plants - one of the goodies of hares. In summer, food - cereals and sedge, in autumn - corn in the fields, wheat and barley. In winter, there is no adequate nutrition, so they are content with the bark of trees and shrubs.
How does a hare live in winter? Children about animals.
Brave hare, the owner of the forest 🙂
Manchurian hare
Distributed in the south of the Far East, in the Amur River Valley, in China, in the north of the Korean Peninsula. Outwardly - almost like a wild rabbit, small in length and weighing up to 2.5 kg. The hind legs are short, the coat is stiff and bristly, does not change color with the change of season.
These animals are the same forest inhabitants as the hare - the white hare. They feed on the stems of shrubbery and woody plants, berries and fruits. In winter - bark and shoots of poplar and aspen.
Antelope hare
Because of the habitat in hot places, such as Arizona in the USA, because of too high a temperature, hares have very long and large ears. This helps not only better hearing, but also regulation of heat transfer.
In the daytime, they hide from the hot sun in the bushes, but from evening until the morning they lead an active lifestyle. Mostly they eat cacti, grass.
Chinese hare
This type of hare is found in the hills of China, lives in Vietnam and is even included in the Red Book. The individuals are small in size, with short, stiff brown fur with many shades; there are black triangles at the ends of the ears.
In the diet: deciduous plants, branches, shoots.
Curly hare
It lives in China, India, is small in size and weighs about 2 kg.
Mainly leads a nocturnal lifestyle and feeds mainly on grass and herbaceous plants.
Some interesting facts:
- This animal is very hardy. It can reach speeds of up to 50 km / h, covering huge distances in a day.
- Through long ears, heat leaves the body, thereby saving the animal from overheating of the body. During rains, the hare presses its ears and water does not get there that would provoke an animal's disease.
- Females live for about 9 years, males - 5. At home, with good and proper care, they can live up to 13 years, but in the wild they often die from the clutches of predators before they reach adulthood.
- Due to the frequent eating of the bark, their teeth are abraded, but new ones grow to replace them.
- Even fleeing from predators, the hare never flees to someone else's territory.
Under natural conditions, the animals themselves get their own food, but what to do with the hare that appears in your house? Of course, deal with what rabbits eat?
Feeding at home
It is worth knowing that the nutrition of hares, especially at home, is difficult to bring closer to the natural. The fact is that rabbit milk has no analogues. Cow's milk and infant formula do not have the same fat content as rabbit. Some farmers feed rabbits with cow's milk with eggs or cream, but then the likelihood of death of eared is increased. Condensed milk should not be used due to its high sugar content.
Eared need to be fed at least 2 times a day in small portions of 5-10 ml at a time.
Only a monthly hare begins to take food on their own. Young hares eat well fresh grass, vegetables and fruits, like carrots, tree leaves, berries. From the 2nd month you can enter the finished feed, but not earlier, since they are absorbed worse and bring discomfort to the animal. For the winter, you can stock up on dried grass harvested in the summer.
Home care and maintenance
Under natural conditions, a very long distance is covered by a hare. Therefore, pets, except small ones, are best kept in a free-range apartment or in aviaries, where it is spacious, and not in cages. But it is worth considering that they leave their excrement everywhere and you will have to remove the droppings behind them.
Young rabbits need warmth, they need to massage the tummy and cotton swab moistened with warm water, wipe under the tail.
No matter how much you try to love your pets, do not forget that these are wild animals, and you need to maximize their content to the natural. Now you have an idea of how the diet is selected by the hare and in what conditions it should be kept.