Hares are adaptable herbivores with a flexible diet, allowing them to thrive across diverse environments. These mammals primarily consume plant material, adjusting their foraging behaviors based on vegetation availability. This dietary flexibility aids their survival in various ecosystems.
Primary Foraging Habits
Hares primarily eat plant matter, including various grasses, herbaceous plants, and wildflowers. They are selective grazers, choosing parts of plants that offer higher nutritional value. They often seek out tender herbs, fresh buds, and succulent grasses, which provide essential nutrients. Specific examples of preferred vegetation include clover, sedges, and ferns.
Hares also consume timothy hay, orchard hay, and oat hay when available. Their foraging behavior is often nocturnal or crepuscular, occurring during dusk and dawn, to minimize exposure to predators. This selective grazing ensures they obtain necessary energy and sustenance from their plant-based diet.
Seasonal Dietary Shifts
A hare’s diet undergoes significant changes throughout the year, influenced by the seasonal availability of plants. In warmer months, they feast on tender, green vegetation. This includes fresh buds, growing twigs, and a wide array of succulent herbs, grasses, and berries. Their diverse summer diet helps them gather needed nutrients for energy and reproduction.
As colder months arrive and green vegetation becomes scarce, hares adapt by shifting their diet to woody plants. During winter, they consume twigs, buds, bark, and evergreen needles from various shrubs and trees. Examples of winter foods include high bush blueberry, birches, alder, maple, raspberries, aspen, willow, and conifers like white pine and red spruce. Arctic hares rely on birch, juniper, and willow during winter, often digging through snow to access lichens, mosses, and other plants. This dietary flexibility helps them survive in harsh conditions when food resources are limited.
Specialized Eating Behaviors
Hares exhibit unique eating behaviors that enhance their nutrient absorption, particularly coprophagy. This involves re-ingesting their own feces, specifically soft, nutrient-rich pellets known as cecotropes. These soft pellets are rich in protein, B vitamins, and other nutrients not fully absorbed during the initial digestive pass. The digestive system of hares is adapted for hindgut fermentation, and coprophagy ensures maximum nutrient extraction from fibrous plant material, significantly increasing protein digestibility.
Hares typically obtain sufficient water from the moisture content of their food, especially fresh vegetation. While they can derive much of their hydration this way, hares will drink water when necessary. When plant matter is scarce or of low quality, hares have been observed to opportunistically scavenge on animal carcasses, consuming meat or feathers to supplement their protein intake. This behavior is a survival adaptation, especially in harsh environments.