How much you should feed your dog depends on five things: body weight, age, activity level, breed size, and whether your dog is spayed or neutered — and the honest answer is a framework, not a single number. The feeding
Yes — deer eat zucchini, though the plant fights back a little. The big leaves and stems are covered in stiff, prickly hairs that deer dislike, so casual browsers often pass a zucchini patch by. But the golden blossoms and
Elk are generally not dangerous to people who keep their distance, and attacks are rare. But elk are large, powerful wild animals, and they injure park visitors in North America nearly every year, almost always because someone got too close.
Bats are among the most economically and ecologically valuable wild animals on Earth. They are the night shift of the natural world: eating crop-destroying insects by the ton, pollinating plants that feed millions of people, and replanting tropical forests one
Wolves and coyotes are close cousins that are mistaken for each other constantly — but once you know what to look for, they’re surprisingly easy to tell apart. A gray wolf is a big, blocky, long-legged animal that can weigh
Most deer drink free-standing water regularly, often daily when it’s convenient, but deer are far less tied to waterholes than most people assume, because a large share of their water comes from the plants they eat. A deer browsing on
Rabbits cannot eat chocolate, avocado, onions, garlic, rhubarb, raw potatoes, fruit seeds and pits, iceberg lettuce, bread, dairy, meat, nuts, or most processed human foods. Some of these are outright toxic; others simply overwhelm a digestive system that evolved to
A handful of everyday foods — chocolate, anything sweetened with xylitol, grapes and raisins, onions and garlic, macadamia nuts, and alcohol — are genuinely toxic to dogs, and several others, like cooked bones and corn cobs, cause emergencies of a
The flap of skin and fur hanging under a moose’s throat is called a dewlap — or, more commonly in moose circles, a “bell” — and the honest scientific answer is that nobody knows for certain what it’s for. Both
Yes — deer eat vegetable gardens, and given the chance they’ll eat most of what’s in yours. A vegetable plot is the richest concentration of tender, well-watered, fertilized food a deer will find anywhere in its range, and once a
Reindeer and elk are two entirely different deer species. The elk (Cervus canadensis) is much larger — a bull elk can weigh roughly twice as much as a bull reindeer — while the reindeer (Rangifer tarandus, called caribou in North
Deer and kangaroos could hardly be more distantly related — one is a placental mammal of the deer family Cervidae, the other a marsupial that raises its young in a pouch — yet they fill strikingly similar roles on opposite
Mostly no — deer generally avoid succulents, but “generally” is doing real work in that sentence. Waxy coatings, bitter or astringent sap, and odd textures keep most succulents low on the deer menu, and many gardens never see a nibble.
Deer are herbivores, and plants make up essentially all of their diet, but the surprising truth is that deer do occasionally eat meat. Deer have been documented eating bird eggs, nestlings and fledglings, fish, carrion, and even, in a few
Deer protect their fawns mainly by hiding them rather than guarding them. A doe conceals her newborn in dense cover, stays away most of the day so her own scent and bulk do not betray the spot, moves the fawn
Yes — deer eat blueberries, and not just the fruit. Deer browse blueberry bushes in every season: dormant buds and twigs in winter, tender new shoots and leaves in spring, and ripe berries by the mouthful in summer. In much
Deer and goats are not close relatives, even though both are hoofed, cud-chewing browsers of similar size. Deer belong to the family Cervidae and grow branched antlers of solid bone that are shed and regrown every year; goats belong to
Caribou are not endangered as a species, but their overall picture is genuinely worrying. The IUCN lists Rangifer tarandus — the single species that includes both caribou and reindeer — as Vulnerable, reflecting substantial declines across much of its global
Yes — deer eat lilies, and both true lilies and daylilies rank among their absolute favorite garden plants. Daylilies are rated “frequently severely damaged” — the worst tier on university resistance lists — and Asiatic, Oriental, and other true lilies
The main predators of fawns in North America are coyotes, black bears, and bobcats, joined regionally by wolves, mountain lions, and, less often, golden eagles, alligators, and free-running domestic dogs. A newborn fawn is small, slow, and protein-rich, which makes
Deer appear able to recognize individual humans, at least in a practical sense. Deer are observant, quick-learning animals with good memories, and plenty of real-world experience suggests they learn to distinguish a familiar, harmless person from a stranger, largely by
A moose is taller than almost any horse. A mature bull moose stands roughly 5.5 to 6.9 feet at the shoulder — the biggest Alaskan bulls approach seven feet — while an average riding horse stands about 4.8 to 5.4
Yes — deer eat sweet potato vine, and they eat it like candy. The ornamental sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) is one of the most vulnerable plants you can put in a container or bed: its big, tender, moisture-rich leaves are
No. Male deer play no part in raising fawns. A buck’s involvement ends at mating: he does not help choose a birth site, does not defend or feed the fawns, and in most cases never associates with them as their