Do beavers really eat wood? These brown, furry, semi-aquatic rodents with large teeth and flat tails are often shown gnawing on a tree. They hold it like a piece of corn on the cob, turning and nibbling it. They chew with their lips closed behind their large front teeth, allowing them to gnaw wood even underwater. So, you would think that they eat wood. However, they chew on trees for a different purpose. Let’s take a look at what beavers actually eat.
What Do Beavers Actually Eat?
Beavers are herbivores and only eat plants and other vegetation. They mostly eat the inner bark of trees, twigs, and leaves. They can eat shrubs, buds of deciduous trees, grasses, and cambium, which is the soft layer under the bark where the tree is actively growing. Because beavers spend a lot of time in the water, they also enjoy aquatic plants like water lilies, pondweed, and cattails. In addition to the foods previously mentioned, here are some of the beavers’ other favorite foods:
- Aspen trees
- Birch trees
- Alder trees
- Cottonwood trees
- Willow trees
- Maple trees
- Oak trees
- Poplar trees
- Clover
- Giant ragweed
Research shows that beavers’ favorite trees are aspen trees, so they prefer to make their lodges near aspen trees. However, they will also build their lodges near other trees. Beavers, however, do not like coniferous trees like pine trees and spruce, but if food is scarce, they can eat and digest these foods.
Beavers build their lodges near their favorite trees.
©Chase Dekker/Shutterstock.com
How Do Beavers Gather Food?
Beavers are not equipped to climb trees to reach the delicious green leaves. So they bring the food to themselves. They gnaw on trees with their large teeth until the tree falls. Then they have access to an all-you-can-eat salad bar.
While beavers chew on the bark and the soft wood under the bark, they don’t eat the wood. While beavers chew on the bark and the soft wood under the bark, they primarily eat the inner bark (cambium) and softer wood tissues, rather than the hard wood itself. They use branches and logs from felled trees to build their dams and lodges, and they gather additional vegetation to store as food in their lodges. These lodges can be 6.5 feet or higher, reaching widths of around 39 feet.
Their main living area is located above the water line. In the fall before the water freezes, they line the bottom of their lodge with fresh tree branches. When the temperatures dip below freezing, the water freezes over the top of the branches. When they need something to eat, they swim out of one of their underwater entrances to retrieve branches stored under the ice.
Beavers cannot climb trees, so they bring the food to them.
©P Harstela/Shutterstock.com
Do Baby Beavers Eat Trees and Leaves?
Although baby beavers can swim when they are just a few days old, they cannot eat trees and leaves right away. Like other mammals, the babies start out nursing on their mother’s milk. At around 3-4 weeks old, the young beavers begin to add in other foods like leaves and inner bark.
Other beavers in the family bring food to the baby beavers until they are old enough to venture out. Baby beavers are weaned at around six weeks of age. Young beavers typically stay with their families until they are about two years old.
