How hares live in the wild – All about our pets

How do hares live in the wild, what does their daily routine consist of? In cartoons, we were shown how these carefree animals jump through the forest all day long. However, of course, their real life is completely different from the cartoon.

How do hares live: what are they feed on

That is the diet of these cute animals?

• Speaking about how hares live and what they eat, you must first of all take into account the fact that the menu depends on the time of year and the habitat of the animal. So, summer for the hare is characterized by the extraction of various green areas of plants, mushrooms, blueberries, horsetail, and oats. He likes, in particular, dandelions, Ivan tea, mouse peas. Since the main habitat of these animals is a forest with patches of fields, there are no problems with obtaining such food. But the hares prefer open areas – meadows and fields are more to their liking. In summer, they prefer to feast on stems, roots, foliage, and in August they especially love seeds, vegetables from the fields and various wild plants.
• Autumn is a great occasion to enjoy various berries and fruits. Russians are especially fond of them. Belyakam like small twigs of shrubs.
• In winter, bunnies often gnaw at the bark. Of course, not any wood suits them – for example, birch, willow, maple, oak, aspen are quite to the taste of eared animals. If you manage to find dried grass, hay, rowan berries, cones – that’s great too! And some especially smart bunnies settle near the fields that are cultivated by people – they can find the remains of vegetables there.
• Spring is just a paradise for hares, as there is a huge amount of greenery. These are, for example, grass, leaves, buds.

How wild hares are saved from enemies

А how do hares get used to defending themselves from predators?

• These Animals are used to disguise themselves the world. Summer, autumn and spring gray coat allows them to merge with earth and trees. By winter, Russians molt and acquire a light fur coat, which perfectly disguises when snow falls. And what about the whites, how are they look in the snowy season? No everyone knows, but this breed of hares in the summer, in autumn and spring it has a gray color! In a word, nature really took care that bunnies of any breed should have opportunity to disguise.
• Running no risk of sinking into deep snow too very helpful. For this, animals have long feet. They are covered a kind of “brush” of wool, which prevents collapse animal in the snowdrifts. Moreover, thanks to with such paws he can dig comfortable and safe holes.
• By the way about holes: in winter, a bunny pulls out in the snow shelter depth of 1,5-2 meters. In the summer his refuge is under some bush or under the roots.
• But before lying down in a hole or in some another shelter, the hare will always try confuse the tracks. To do this, he will jump in different directions, periodically returning to trodden path. That is, he leaves a new trail, then returns to the old one.
• Vision hares are very bad – they can even ignore what’s underneath nose. But the sound is excellent! Ears act as locators – turning side to side, they are capable catch the slightest movements around.
• Rear The paws of hares are incredibly strong. And clawed. If the enemy overtook, eared the animal may well fight him off, falling on my back. That’s what hares do such as large birds of prey.
• В if necessary, hares are capable run up to 50 km/h. At the same time, they are still make turns! Many predators give up when trying to catch up with an eared animal.

About the breeding of hares

That same can be said about how hares reproduce and “educate” offspring?

• Very often hares live apart. But, however, animals living in pairs also meet. Puberty is coming in hares in the period from 7 to 10 months.
• В in any case, the mating season for these adorable little animals happens to the onset of cold weather. And literally in February, the hare brings offspring. В on average, she is able to give birth three times for a year, although, of course, it happens differently.
• each pregnancy lasts about 50 days. And in one brood can be counted from 5 to 10 kids. They show up right away into the world in a small fur coat, they know how to walk and see. In a word, these animals are not accepted adapt to the environment long time. And it makes sense for those animals that are not predators.
• Milk mothers is a common occurrence and for hares, their babies also eat this delicacy. However, on average a week. Then soon the kids are already starting adapt to plant foods origin.
• Remarkably, how a hare behaves to distract predators. The fact is that the bunnies themselves they do not emit a smell, but adults – Yes. That is why mom periodically comes out of the hole and runs away, counting something that will divert attention from the shelter predators.

Nature very wisely foreseen everything. She is equipped the animals with everything they need for survival skills, physical features. And we hope readers learned from our article useful information on this topic.