Transcript Deer Teeth Parts - University of Minnesota

DEER ANATOMY
DEER DIGESTION SYSTEM

Whitetails are ruminants, meaning they are
equipped with a four chambered stomach. An
interesting characteristic about the ruminant's
stomach is that it allows the animal to gather a
lot of food at once and then chew and digest it
later. The four chambered stomach is needed to
process the large quantities of low nutrient food
that deer eat.

Depending on the type
and abundance of
food, the deer can fill
its stomach in about
one or two hours.
When a deer eats, food
is chewed just enough
to swallow. The food
then passes down the
esophagus into the
stomach.

The deer has a four section
stomach similar to that of
cattle. The food goes into the
first section (the Rumen)
which acts as a
fermentation chamber. Most
of the digestion occurs in
this area of the stomach.
Deer depend on billions of
micro-organisms that live in
its stomach to break down
the food components, and
convert them into materials
that can be used by the
deer's digestive system.
Almost half of a deer's
energy is produced from the
acids absorbed through the
walls of the Rumen.

After the deer has filled
its first stomach, it will
lay down to chew its
cud. After chewing its
cud for awhile, the deer
re-swallows the food,
which then passes to the
second portion of the
stomach (the
Reticulum). The
Reticulum's main
function is to filter out
foriegn matter. This
process takes roughly 16
hours.

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The food material then
passes on to the third
stomach (the Omasum),
which absorbs most of the
water from the food. Then
to the forth stomach (the
Abomasum) which
produces acids for more
digestion and absorbtion.
The food material then
goes through the intestines
and everything that isn't
digested is passed off as
waste droppings.
A deer will urinate and
deficate nearly a dozen
times a day

Nuts are the most
preferred foods for deer.
They eat acorns,
beechnuts, hickory nuts
and pecans. Acorns are
the fruit that falls from
oak trees. The deer
prefer acorns that come
from white oak trees to
those that fall from red
oaks. The white oak
acorns appear to be
sweeter than those from
the red oak.

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Fruits are another of their
favorite foods. Deer obtain
quick energy from the sugars of
the fruits. The top of their list
of favored fruits includes
apples, persimmons and sumac
heads. While they will eat other
types of fruits, these appear
more often in the rural
wilderness than fruits that are
cultivated commercially.
Fruit that has fallen to the
ground at the edges of
commercial orchards is also
consumed by deer, provided
they don’t sense danger. These
items are only available in
limited quantity, so while they
may be preferred by deer, they
do not make up a major part of
the deer's diet.
GRASSES AND PLANTS

Deer also enjoy dining on
grasses and plants,
including flowering weeds
and other non-woody type
perennials. Fields that
grow a large quantity of
wild flowers are ideal
places for the deer to
forage. Dandelions, wild
roses, and red clover are
plentiful in most of the
meadows and fields in the
land near forests. Deer can
also use the forest to
provide cover and to travel
along trails to reach water
and other places to find
food.

Deer eat the highly
nutritious mushroom
as a supplement to
their diet. Many
species that are
deadly to man are
consumed by deer.

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Deer also are extremely fond of
cultivated vegetables. Crops of
beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes,
soybeans, wheat and rye are a
few of the favored crops that
they will take the opportunity
to feed on. Any grain or grass
grown for livestock is also good
for them as well.
Unfortunately, this makes deer
unwelcome visitors for farmers
and gardeners, who may try to
scare the deer away using
various tactics. The edges of
fields are the most likely places
to observe deer who are
scavenging, because from the
edge they can slip into the
woods if they sense danger.
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When late fall and winter arrive, the deer
don’t normally have such a large
selection of foods to choose from. With no
other choices, they select items that can
provide some nutrition, even if the
nutrition is limited. They will eat fallen
leaves, twigs, and small buds from trees
and bushes. These foods generally come
from woody type plants. They provide
less nutrition than the non-woody plants
but they are better than staving.
Deer need to consume between five and
eight pounds of food for each 100 pounds
of body weight each day to maintain their
bodies. They also have a need for one and
a half quarts of water every day. Their
water needs can be partially satisfied by
the foods that they eat, because most
plants have 50 to 90 percent water
content. They also look for water sources
along the paths that they follow in the
forest to go from one food source to the
next.