ELK 101
Do elk count their calories?
PHOTO: RMEF
by Emily Messer
It’s no secret that elk are large animals, and it takes a lot of nutrient-rich food to fuel them. But just how much does an elk eat?
Like all living creatures, elk need energy to move, reproduce and survive throughout the year. Researchers have found that although it varies throughout the year, elk eat about 3 pounds of food per 100 pounds of weight each day. Do the math, and a 500-pound cow is eating 15 pounds of food. An 800-pound bull might chomp down 24 pounds of forage.
And consuming all those calories takes time. One study in New Mexico found that elk spent on average 27 minutes of each hour foraging, with peak foraging observed at dawn and dusk.
Being picky eaters, elk are considered selective feeders due to their demand for higher quality food compared to cattle. While livestock have wider muzzles that help them eat in large quantities, an elk’s is narrower to help pick small forbs. Their diet relies on grasses and shrubs as well as flowering plants and other forbs. But meeting their caloric and nutritional needs becomes especially crucial to survive the leaner times. In the winter, elk consume twigs, leaves, and tree bark, which their four-chambered stomachs allow them to digest.
Elk process that bounty of food for energy, whether used immediately or to help build up fat reserves to get them through the colder months. Energy expenditures vary depending on the time of year and whether elk are rutting, gestating, lactating or migrating.
A cow elk each day spends about 6,600 calories during the spring, 6,850 calories during summer and nearly 6,500 calories during the fall. Add 800 calories per day during gestation and 4,000 per day to produce milk, according to Montana State University.
In the winter when daily activity is lowest, cows need about 6,000 calories, but that increases significantly depending on the energy needed to maintain body heat. At 32 degrees, a cow loses an additional 5,300 calories to heat loss each day. Turn the temperature down to zero and crank the wind up to 14 miles per hour, and that extra expenditure jumps to more than 6,100 calories lost just to stay warm. And when calories in fall below calories out, an elk loses about 1 pound for every 5,000 calories it uses in stored fat.
