Do They Really Eat Wood? Why?
Do beavers really eat wood? These brown furry rodents with
large teeth and a flat tail can often be shown gnawing on a tree.
You could therefore think that they eat wood, but they actually chew on trees for a different reason. Let’s see what beavers eat.
How do beavers gather food?
Beavers only eat plants and vegetables known as herbivores. Along with the bark and leaves, they mostly eat the inner bark of trees.
Beavers also eat the bark from trees and the soft wood under the bark. But they don’t really eat the wood.
They also eat apples, twigs, and shrubs. They spend a lot of time in the water, beavers also appreciate aquatic plants including lilies, pondweed, and cattails.
Beavers are incredibly creative when it comes to putting food for the winter. They spend winter in their lodges, which are built on the river.
They therefore line the bottom of their lodge with fresh tree branches in the fall before the water freezes. Water freezes over top of the branches when the temperature drops below freezing.
They swim out of their lodge and below the ice to find their branches when they are hungry. Clever!
Never again cottonwood trees! When it comes to trees, beavers choose aspen trees.
Aspen trees are a favorite trees for beavers
As per research, aspen trees are the beaver’s favorite trees. Beavers build their lodges close to the trees they like, therefore they look for places that are close to both water and aspen trees.
They will also eat willow, cottonwood, alder, and birch. Although they hate coniferous trees like pine trees and spruce, they may eat and digest them in times of food scarcity.
Do baby beavers eat leaves and trees?
Not immediately. Similar to many animals, their babies are initially fed their mother’s milk. They only drink milk for the first six weeks, after which they start getting other meals like leaves, bark, and inner bark.
Until they are old enough to venture out, other beavers in the family provide food for the baby beavers.
