What Do Moose Eat? | Outdoor Living

Planning a successful elk hunt requires a lot of preparation. Many hunters focus on the obvious things like fitness and gear, but understanding elk feeding habits should be more than just another task on your to-do list. It’s the key to unlocking their daily movements and behavioral patterns. It can be just as important as honing your shooting skills and scouting the season. Like whitetail deer and other ungulates, elk are largely driven by their gut. Understanding what elk eat (and when) can help you plan your hunt more strategically and increase your chances of success. So, what do elk eat? Here’s a handy breakdown.

A moose’s diet consists mainly of vegetation

Like their cousins ​​the whitetails, elk are herbivores, meaning they spend their days plowing through Mother Nature’s salad bar. These hardy beasts are both grazers (eating grasses and herbaceous plants like cows) and browsers (meaning they eat the leaves, shoots, and fruits of shrubs and trees like whitetails).

If we were to judge what moose like to eat based on what they would consume in the most quantities, it would definitely be grass. Grasses make up an average of 73 percent of a moose’s diet. Moose graze on grass year-round if it is available, according to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. It doesn’t really matter what kind of grass. They will eat wheatgrass, brome grass, bluegrass, and fescue in abundance. Elk do have a preference for certain herbs such as sticky geranium, false dandelion, wild lupine, aster, elk sedge, and shadbush, all of which documented favorites.

A large herd of elk graze in a rancher's pasture in Wyoming.
A large herd of elk graze in a Wyoming rancher’s field. Photo by Alice Jones Webb

Photo by Alice Jones Webb

But just because you eat a lot of something doesn’t mean it’s your favorite food. I eat a ton of rice every week, mostly because it’s cheap and easy to get. If I have a choice between a bowl of rice and a piece of chocolate cake, I’ll always choose the cake. Each is about the same.

Elk are not limited to foraging in open meadows and grasslands. Elk also roam in timber and thickets, grazing on woody vegetation, and when given the chance, they will feed on agricultural crops such as corn, soybeans, and alfalfa. Elk also seem to view clover as their hoofed version of chocolate cake.

Elk are large animals and it takes a lot of vegetation to support their large bodies. On average, an elk needs to eat about 3 pounds of food every day for every 100 pounds of body weight. So for an 800 pound bull, that’s a whopping 24 pounds of grass, forbes, and leaves per day. When you have a whole herd of elk eating that much vegetation, you start to understand why ranchers get so frustrated with elk in their alfalfa.

Favorite Grasses of Elk

  • Wheatgrass of the blue bundle (Pseudoroegneria spicatum)
  • Geyer’s sedgeCarex geyeri)
  • Idaho fescue (Fetusca idahoensis)
  • Torrey fescue (Fetusca scabrella)
  • Annual meadow grass (Spoa species)
  • June grass (Koeleria cristata)

Elk’s Favorite Herbs

  • False dandelion (Agoseris glauca)
  • Sticky geranium (Geranium viscosesimum)
  • She-wolf (Lupinus species)
  • Aster (Aster species)
  • Clover (Trifolium species)

Favorite trees and shrubs of elk

  • Saskatoon currant tree (Amelanchier alnifolia)
  • Red stem ceanothus (Ceanothus bloodshot)
  • Snow brush (Ceanothus velutinus)
  • Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides)
  • White cherry (Prunus virginiana)
  • Antelope bitterbrush (Purshia three-toed)
  • Gambrel oak (Quercus gambelii)
  • Willow (Salix species)

What Moose Eat Throughout the Seasons

A velvet moose male grazes in the grass.
Abundant and nutritious summer forage is essential for elk antler growth, pregnancy and lactation.

Photo by Tom / Adobe Stock

Elk are opportunistic feeders, meaning they adjust their eating habits to the available food that provides the most nutrition. Changes in seasons bring shifts in food sources. Understanding these shifts can help you find more elk.

Spring

Spring is the season of awakening and elk take full advantage of all that fresh green growth. After the lean winter, elk need nutritious food to replenish energy and replace the weight they lost during the winter and rutting season.

Finding Moose early green grasses and herbs such as clover, dandelion, and Indian rice grass are particularly tasty, and the high protein content of these foods also means they are nutritionally valuable. South- and west-facing slopes are the first to green up in early spring, so those locations are where elk congregate. The animals will move to higher elevations to follow the wave of new growth, which will help meet all of their nutritional needs, including support for pregnancy, lactation, and antler growth.

Summer

Summer is a time of abundant feeding for moose. The moose’s summer diet consists primarily of herbs such as dandelion, geranium, asters, and clover. In herb-rich areas, these herbaceous flowering plants can account for up to 100 percent of a moose’s daily intake.

A herd of elk graze in an open meadow in Yellowstone National Park.
A herd of elk graze in Yellowstone National Park. Photo by Alice Jones Webb

Photo by Alice Jones Webb

Fall

As summer turns to fall and green plants become harder to find, elk change their diet to include more leaves. While grass is still the staple of their diet, certain plants such as Oregon cherry, prairie sage, and forget-me-nots respond to the first frost of the season by producing a burst of calorie-rich sugar with the first frost, allowing elk to build up their fat reserves for the rapidly approaching winter.

Fall is rutting season, so bulls are much more focused on breeding than feeding. Cows, however, still follow food sources. Since bulls follow cows, it’s crucial for hunters to know what foods are available where they’re hunting this time of year, especially those sugary herbs that become desserts for elk at the height of hunting season.

Winter

With the onset of winter, food becomes much less available to elk herds. Winter food supply is the primary factor which limits elk populations. The animals thrive in winter ranges with herbaceous vegetation, which can make up to 84 percent of their diet in areas with available grasses. However, grasses can be difficult for elk to access in deep snow, so herds will often hang out on the same south- and west-facing slopes they frequent in the spring, as well as on windswept ridges. These areas typically have shallow, dry soil conditions that yield higher-quality forage that is more palatable and higher in protein than areas with deeper soils.

A cow moose eats grass in the winter.
A cow moose chews a mouthful of dried grass after a light snowfall. Winter is the toughest time for many animals, including moose, which often have to plow through snow to find enough food.

Photo by Danielle Brigida/USFWS

Read more: What do deer eat?

Woody browse also becomes an important food source for elk during cold months—more so than any other season, and especially in habitats west of the Continental Divide. Aspen, mountain maple, serviceberry, chokecherry, dogwood, and willow are all favorite elk browse.
The availability of grasses and foliage is especially important for mature bulls. The rutting season is hard on the body of a large bull and they can 20 percent of their body weight. Wintering away from large herds, where predators like to lurk, is often crucial to survival. Sometimes this means that a large bull may have to rely on fat reserves due to less than ideal foraging situations. Isolated grassy slopes, small clearings, and exposed knobs are places where solitary bulls can find ground brush and aspen growth to survive the winter.

Q: What is a moose’s favorite food?

Elk do not have a single favorite food, but they do prefer certain plants based on their area, the season, and availability. Grasses make up the majority of their diet (about three-quarters of it), but they do seem to prefer flowering plants such as clover and dandelions when they are available.

Q: Do elk ever eat meat?

Although moose are classified as herbivores, they sometimes deviate from their typical diet to eat meat and eggs, according to the Rocky Mountain Elk FoundationIf that’s hard to imagine, check this out video showing a moose cow feeding on geese.

Q: Do elk eat apples?

Like their relatives, the white-tailed deer, moose love applesThey are known to nibble on the tender branches of small apple trees and eat the fruit of mature trees.

Final Thoughts on What Moose Eat

In the summer, a moose eats grass and flowers.
Although elk feed primarily on grasses, they also eat fresh green herbs (such as flowers) and woody leaves.

Photo by Amelie / Adobe Stock

The answer to the question, “What do moose eat?” is complicated because it is so broad. The standard diet of moose is incredibly varied, with everything from grass to bark on the menu. Grass may make up the majority of their diet, but because moose are opportunistic feeders, they tend to eat whatever is available with the changing seasons. They follow the green growth in the spring, but move into wooded areas to graze during the harsh winter months. Understanding how moose eating habits change throughout the year can greatly increase your chances of getting your moose tag this hunting season.

Alice Jones Webb