What do hares eat in nature?

A hare is a herbivore 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 hares eat

What do hares eat

The ration for hares is diverse, especially in the summer, although depends on where this wild animal lives.Eared eared mainly plant food – the roots and bark of trees, leaves and stems of plants, vegetables and fruits, happy to eat young shoots of shrubs. In spring, with a deficiency of mineral salts, the hare can eat up and even swallowing stones.

Mostly hares are considered vegetarians, but there are cases when they ate the meat of partridges caught in hunting traps.

Varieties of hares

For us it’s a little harmless fluffy e animals that live in the forest and when danger is approaching quickly disappear from sight.

From February, offspring begin to appear in hares.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 kids for several hours. After a week, teeth appear in the rabbits.

Previously, the hare lays grass in the mink, which is rabbit and begins to feed after about 10 days. By about a month, the offspring that have grown up no longer need their mother and begin to live independently.

In Russia, you can meet 4 species of hares:

• squirrel;
• hare- brown man;
• pound;
• Manchu hare.

In nature, there are 32 species in total according to one version, according to scientific disputes, adding to this mind and rabbits, and pika, 45 species. We will get to know some of them.

Hare hare

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 at the tips of the ears remains black. Gray jumper in summer.

What does the hare eat in the forest? 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.

Still-eared animals of this species can feed on elk horns dumped in the forest. If possible, they dig berries out of the snow, feed on hay harvested from stacks near the villages. In spring, when fresh grass appears on the lawns, white hares flock to eat this delicacy.

This animal leads a nocturnal lifestyle, therefore, it often lies during the day, and at night it gets its own food, covering long distances.

The hare is a rook

Let’s get to know this hare. Mermaid are 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 to be pests that pose a serious danger.

In winter, the hare bites 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 spring, they often damage the roots of shrubs, eat leaves, young shoots and stems of plants.

Hare – tolai

Small hares, legs and ears longer than those of other individuals. A representative of this species lives in the deserts and in the Russian steppes, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan.

What does the hare 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 consists of roots and tubers of herbaceous plants (they eat young grass with pleasure).

In the desert, ephemera grow – 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 satisfied with the bark of trees and shrubs.

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 length and weighing up to 2.5 kg. The hind legs are short, the hair is stiff and bristly, does not change color with the change of season.

These animals are the same forest inhabitants as the hare – hares. They feed on shrub and tree stems plants, berries and fruits. In winter – bark and shoots of poplar and aspen.

nontilopian hare

Due to the habitat in hot places such as Arizona in the USA, because of the too high temperature, hares have very long and large ears, which helps not only better hearing, but also regulation heat exchange.

In the daytime they hide from the hot sun in the bushes, but from the evening until the morning they lead an active lifestyle. They eat mainly cacti, grass.

Chinese hare

This type of hare is found on the hills of China, lives in Vietnam and is even included in the Red Book. Individuals are small in size, with short, hard 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.

Mostly 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 is expelled from 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.
• Because of the frequent eating of the bark, their teeth wear out, but new ones grow to replace them.
• Even fleeing from predators, a hare never flees to someone else’s territory.

In vivo, animals themselves get their own food, but what to do with a hare, singing stuck in your house? Of course, to understand what rabbits eat?

Feeding at home

It is worth knowing that the nutrition of hares, especially at home, is difficult to bring closer to 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 5-10ml at a time.

Only a monthly bunny begins to take food on its own. Young rabbits 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, as they are absorbed worse and bring discomfort to the animal. For winter, you can stock up with dried grass harvested in summer.

Keeping and caring for the hare at home

In natural conditions, the hare travels a very long distance. Therefore, pets, in addition to small ones, are best kept in a free-range apartment or in aviaries, where it is spacious and not in cages. But keep in mind that they leave their excrement everywhere and you will have to remove the litter behind them.

Young hares need heat, they need to massage their tummy and cotton wool moistened with warm water, wipe under their 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 maintained.