What Groundhogs Eat?
Groundhogs are primarily herbivores but sometimes groundhogs have been found feeding on small insects like grasshopper, bugs, snails.
They eat green plants like lettuce, alfalfa, grasses, dandelions, daisies, red mulberry, and hackberry.
Vegetables like alfalfa, clove, lettuce, broccoli, plantain, celery, carrots, corn, peas, and beans.
How much Groundhog eat once?
Groundhogs eat approximately 1/3 of their weight in vegetation each day. An adult groundhog can eat more than a pound plant.
Groundhogs are one of the most feared garden pasts, they can consume all essential plants, fruits, vegetables overnight. So, there are many plants that groundhogs generally avoid or don’t like to eat.
What type of food groundhogs don’t eat?
They avoid various flowery plants like Ageratum, bleeding heart, butterfly weed, foxglove, larkspur, lavender, sweet alyssum, yarrow.
Those plants are suitable for gardening. They avoid spicy foods and some vegetables like potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. Groundhogs also avoid Mediterranean herbs in the mint family such as thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage, basil, and lemon balm. We also don’t hare that they consume squashes, cucumber, and melons. Sweet corn and onions family is usually safe from them.
Groundhogs seldom eat columbine (Aquilegia), daylily (Hemerocallis), blanket flower (Gaillardia x Grandiflora), cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), and marigold (Tagetes).
Groundhog Meals As Per Seasons
In summer, groundhog’s forage is hackberry, mulberry, and maple leaves. Occasionally they will also depend on small insects like grubs, snails, small birds too.
Hibernation
To prepare for winter groundhogs start to eat more and more or enough in late summer to put on weight, they eat especially fat sources like apples, walnuts, acorns, and other protein-rich high-calorie food. This continues during the fall. As alfalfa is nutritional they eat the most to prepare for winters.
Groundhog stores food in their dens for consumption during winter they are very fast in the autumn just prior to hibernation. Groundhog snuggles in family groups to conserve heat during winter.
They occasionally wake from their deep sleep for feed. Because they don’t eat in winters groundhogs lose weight during their hibernation and can weigh one–third to one-half in the springtime than in the autumn.
In the rainy season, as the rain goes away groundhogs love to drink rain droplets off the grass, ground and anywhere they found the fresh rainwater. The rain droplets give groundhogs the perfect opportunity to lap up water.
Meals for baby groundhogs
The baby groundhogs are completely dependent on the mother. After 6 weeks of birth, a baby starts to venture outside to feed with green vegetables or ground crops like grasses, cloves, etc. When baby groundhogs completely weaned it starts to feed with foraged grasses, vegetables, small insects, nuts, and fruits.
