The groundhog, or woodchuck (Marmota monax), is a large North American rodent. As true hibernators, they must consume a large volume of food to survive the long winter months. Summer is the primary feeding season, providing the abundance needed to build reserves for dormancy. This drive to feed dictates the groundhog’s daily activities and habitat choices during warmer months.
Primary Summer Vegetation
The foundation of the groundhog’s summer diet is a variety of wild, lush green plants. As a generalist herbivore, the animal prefers vegetation that is high in moisture and low in fiber. This preference leads them to graze heavily on common field and meadow plants located near their burrow entrances.
Favorite natural food sources include highly nutritious clover and calorie-dense alfalfa. They also consume the leaves and flowers of widespread weeds like dandelions and plantain. Groundhogs must eat a substantial amount of forage, sometimes consuming up to a pound of vegetation daily. The moisture content in these plants is also important, as groundhogs often obtain most of their hydration from the vegetation they eat.
Opportunistic Foods and Garden Raiding
When natural forage is plentiful, groundhogs primarily stick to wild grasses and forbs. However, their eating habits become opportunistic when human development provides high-value alternatives. They frequently exploit cultivated landscapes, including home gardens and agricultural fields, preferring the sweeter, softer produce found there.
They commonly raid gardens for plants like beans, peas, and carrots, alongside fruit-bearing plants such as squash, tomatoes, and melons. These items are attractive because they offer a higher concentration of sugars and carbohydrates than wild plants. While their diet is overwhelmingly herbivorous, groundhogs are technically omnivores. They occasionally consume small amounts of animal protein, including invertebrates like grasshoppers, grubs, and snails encountered while foraging.
Preparing for Hibernation: The Summer Feast
The intense feeding activity observed during the summer months is a biological necessity driven by the need to prepare for hibernation. Groundhogs engage in hyperphagia, or excessive eating, to accumulate significant fat reserves. This preparation is vital, as they do not eat at all during the five to six months they spend in torpor.
The stored fat is metabolized slowly throughout the winter to sustain the groundhog’s minimal life functions. These fat layers can cause the animal to nearly double its body weight and are the sole source of energy until spring. The summer diet is therefore focused on storing the fuel required for deep hibernation, during which heart rate, breathing, and body temperature drop dramatically.