Introduction
Cottontail rabbits, particularly the Eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus), are common throughout the United States and Canada. Their adaptability allows them to thrive in diverse environments, from open grasslands to suburban areas. Understanding their diet and nutritional needs is crucial for appreciating their ecological role and ensuring their survival, especially during the harsh winter months. This article delves into the dietary habits of cottontail rabbits, their nutritional strategies, and the challenges they face in different seasons.
General Dietary Habits
Cottontail rabbits are herbivores with a diet that varies depending on the season and available resources. They consume a wide array of plant foods, including grasses, sedges, sprouts, leaves, fruits, buds, and bark.
Summer Diet
During the summer months, cottontails primarily feed on grasses, legumes, succulent annuals, and weeds. Some of their favorite foods during this time include:
- Clovers
- Crabgrasses
- Alfalfa
- Bluegrasses
- Quackgrass
- Redtop
- Plantains
- Chickweed
- Dandelion
These green, herbaceous plants provide essential nutrients and hydration during the warmer months. Cottontails will also consume the occasional garden vegetable if available.
Fall Diet
As fall progresses, the cottontail's diet transitions from green plants to woody stems and buds. This shift is crucial for survival, as they begin to build a layer of brown fat needed to endure the winter.
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Winter Diet
In winter, cottontails primarily consume twigs, buds, and bark of woody vegetation. This high-cellulose diet provides less energy than they expend, so they rely on brown fat reserves for energy.
Nutritional Strategies
Cottontail rabbits have developed several unique strategies to maximize nutrient absorption from their plant-based diet.
Coprophagy
One of the most remarkable adaptations of cottontail rabbits is their practice of coprophagy, or eating their own feces. This process allows them to extract additional nutrients from their food. After food passes through the small intestine, digestible material enters the cecum, where bacteria break down plant matter into simple sugars. The resulting soft cecal pellets are then consumed by the rabbit. Indigestible fibrous food bypasses the cecum, moving directly to the large intestine, where water is absorbed before excretion as hard fecal pellets. These hard pellets are typically ignored unless food is scarce.
Coprophagy is essential for:
- Recycling nutrients
- Maximizing vitamin absorption
- Maintaining gut health
Vitamin C Intake
Cottontails obtain Vitamin C from green leafy foods during the summer. They also have an enzyme in their liver to produce it.
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Brown Fat
In the fall, cottontail rabbits build a layer of brown fat (brown adipose tissue). In winter, they can generate heat by releasing the energy stored in this brown fat through metabolism. Brown fat has more mitochondria than white fat, and these mitochondria act like fat-burning stoves which produce heat quickly. This layer of fat also serves as extra insulation. The metabolism of brown fat creates life-sustaining heat, it also produces free radicals (unstable atoms that damage cells and DNA).
Habitat and Food Availability
The habitat of cottontail rabbits directly influences their diet. They prefer open grassy areas, clearings, and meadows with abundant green grasses and herbs, along with shrubs for cover. These areas provide a variety of food sources throughout the year.
Optimal Habitats
- Farms, including fields, pastures, and open woods
- Thickets associated with fencerows
- Wooded thickets
- Forest edges
- Suburban areas with adequate food and cover
- Swamps and marshes
Importance of Cover
Ground cover is essential for cottontail survival. Adequate ground cover includes:
- Brushpiles
- Dense, low-growing, woody vegetation
- Sites that can provide refuge from inclement weather and predators
High predation rates often indicate inadequate cover.
Seasonal Adaptations and Diet
Cottontail rabbits exhibit specific dietary adaptations throughout the year, aligning their food intake with seasonal changes.
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Spring
Spring marks the beginning of the breeding season. The leafy greens of spring become available around the time when a nursing cottontail doe needs extra nutrition.
Summer
The summer diet of eastern cottontails is predominantly tender green plants, including clovers, alfalfa, timothy, ragweed, goldenrods, plantains, and dandelion.
Fall
As fall progresses, the available food transitions from the green plants of summer to woody stems and buds. Cottontails begin building the layer of brown fat needed to survive the winter.
Winter
In the colder months, the only food available is the less-nutritious high-cellulose stems and buds that provide less energy than the rabbit uses each day, so they must rely on their brown fat for energy. Cottontails look for shelter as cold weather sets in, preferably near a reliable food source. A quality refuge covered by a blanket of insulating snow is an ideal place to ride out a storm in severe weather. Dense shrubs, stands of conifers, and brush piles make prime rabbit shelters. Rabbits may also take shelter under a deck or chicken coop.
Habitat Management for Cottontails
Effective habitat management is crucial for supporting healthy cottontail populations. Practices that enhance food availability and cover are essential.
Forest Management
Forest management techniques can significantly impact cottontail habitat. Creating diverse habitats through various regeneration methods benefits rabbits.
- Shelterwood and Seed Tree Cuts: These methods promote the growth of herbaceous and shrubby understories, providing food and cover.
- Clearcuts: Clearcutting can create excellent rabbit habitat by encouraging the growth of early successional vegetation.
Brush Management
Brush management practices generally benefit rabbits by providing food and protection. Techniques include:
- Prescribed Burning: Burning at three- to five-year intervals from December to March can improve understory quality. However, stands should not be burned unless advanced regeneration is needed.
- Edge Feathering: Cutting trees along the edges of fields creates a gradual transition between habitats, offering cover and food.
Creating Cover
Maintaining key cover areas is vital for cottontails. This can be achieved through:
- Brush Piles: Creating brush piles from tree limbs and debris provides immediate shelter.
- Planting Shrubs: Planting native shrubs in 1/8- to 1/4-acre plots within areas with limited cropland can enhance cover.
- Old Fields: Maintaining abandoned orchards and other old fields provides valuable habitat.
Health and Disease Considerations
Cottontail rabbits are susceptible to various diseases that can impact their health and survival.
Common Diseases
- Coccidiosis: This parasitic disease can cause fatal enteritis in stressed juveniles.
- Fibroma Virus: Causes Shope’s fibroma or "rabbit horn," spread by arthropod vectors.
- Papillomavirus: Causes horny warts on the neck, shoulders, ears, or abdomen.
- Myxomatosis: Causes fibrotic skin nodules, also transmitted by arthropod vectors.
- Staphylococcus aureus Infection: Transmitted by skin abrasion or insect bites, leading to abscessation of lymph nodes or systemic infection.
- Baylisascaris: Aberrant larval migration can cause central nervous system disease.
- Rabbit Haemorrhagic Disease (RHD): A highly contagious and often fatal viral disease.
Cuterebra Myiasis
Large fly larvae are commonly found in the subcutaneous space of the neck and chest during warm weather months. Adult flies lay eggs on the rabbit fur, which later hatch into larvae that bore through the skin. The larva then burrows into the ground where it pupates and later emerges as an adult fly.
Conservation Status and Threats
Although Eastern cottontails are not currently threatened, they face challenges such as habitat changes, predation, and hunting pressure. Maintaining suitable habitats and managing populations are essential for their long-term survival.
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