Moose Mastication
Moose are ruminants and as such have stomachs which are highly specialized for the microbial fermentation of food that they eat. Without this adaptation, they could not digest their high fiber diet. Mastication of their food, however, is their primary method for the physical breakdown of plant material. By breaking down food into smaller pieces, the surface area increases for microbial digestion.
Moose chew their food twice and the rate at which they chew it varies. Their spring and summer diet which consists of leaves of deciduous browse, aquatic plants, etc. is more digestible than the woody browse they eat during winter due to the relatively small amount of lignin (used in the formation of cell walls) it contains. The more lignin, the more intensely the cud/bolus (food previously eaten) is chewed. The amount of chewing a regurgitated bolus receives can vary from 24 to 107 chews per minute. In the spring, when food is succulent, one study showed that moose chewed food at about 62 chews per bolus, compared with a high of 133 in winter.
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Moose Beds
In winter, Moose prefer to use powder snow areas in mixed forests, under large conifers, as bedding sites. They can rest while standing or when bedding on the ground. When standing, a moose’s head and neck are relaxed but its ears are constantly moving in order to detect sound coming from any direction. When bedded on the ground, a moose’s legs can be tucked under its body or extended (when laying on their side).
A favored resting and sleeping position of antlered bulls is on one side of their body, with legs stretched and one antler touching the ground. Moose have the ability to nearly disappear if they bed down in snow. A bedded moose does not move and looks very much like a stump or rock. When they rise, they often leave shed hairs and scat in the depression they’ve made in the snow.
A large bed with one or two smaller ones indicates a cow and her calves have bedded down together. (Thanks to Kit Emery for photo op.)
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Moose Incisor Scrapings
In the winter Moose feed mainly by browsing on twigs and by scraping bark off of trees. Like White-tailed Deer and other ruminants, Moose lack incisors in their upper jaw; they bite off their food between their lower incisors and a hard pad on the upper gum.
An obvious sign of Moose is the “incisor scrapes” they make when removing bark from trees with their lower incisors. An upwards movement of their head enables them to scrape a strip of bark from the tree. Sometimes instead of a clean scrape, neatly cut at both ends, you will see shredded bits of bark flapping at the top of a scrape. This occurs when a Moose begins a scrape and then grabs the piece of bark between its incisors and hard palate and pulls it upwards, peeling off a strip.
When in Moose habitat, look for the incisor scrapes of Moose on Red and Striped Maple, Willow, Trembling Aspen, Balsam Fir and Mountain Ash. Moose scrapings can be found starting as low as ten inches from the ground and can extend as high as eight feet (most likely made by a Moose standing on snow).
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Moose Affected By Global Warming
It is fairly well known that the Moose population in the Northeast (and elsewhere) has plummeted — New Hampshire has lost more than 40% of their Moose in the last decade, and this trend is occurring throughout northern New England. Global warming is at the heart of this decline. Warm winters have allowed the tick population to soar, and blood loss due to ticks has weakened Moose, making them susceptible to anemia and unable to fight off disease. The negative effect of warmer temperatures doesn’t stop there. Summer heat stress promotes weight loss, a fall in pregnancy rates and increased vulnerability to disease. Excessive warm weather drives Moose to seek shelter, rather than forage for much-needed food. This phenomenon has been described by Moose biologists as “one of the most precipitous non-hunting declines of a major species in the modern era.”
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Moose in Winter
Moose are in their element during northern New England winters. Their bodies are built for snowy, cold conditions. Moose lose relatively little heat due to their large body which gives them a low surface area-to-volume ratio. Long legs enable them to travel through deep snow. However, when the snow gets to be more than 28 inches deep, the energy expended to find food is not worth it. Under deep snow or crust conditions, moose often seek shelter in stands of conifers where the snow is not as deep and where browse is available.
Conifers are beneficial to moose in yet another way. Moose are able to withstand very cold temperatures –in fact, they become uncomfortable (and have been known to pant) when winter temperatures are higher than 23°F. Their coat consists of long, hollow outer hairs and a dense soft undercoat. Our winter temperatures can be quite variable and moose depend on the shade of coniferous cover to keep them cool during our warmer winter days.
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Moose Ruminating
Moose are ruminants, as are cattle, goats, sheep and deer; they have a four-chambered stomach, which is necessary in order to digest the cellulose in the vegetation they consume. Food goes to the rumen and the reticulum, the first two chambers, which contain bacteria and other microorganisms that help digest the cellulose as it mixes with saliva. Here the food separates into solids and liquid material and the solids clump together to form the cud, which is regurgitated and chewed a second time in order to break it down into smaller bits. The third chamber, or omasum, functions as a pump, sending the food to the final chamber, the abomasum, where the digestion process is completed.
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Bull Moose Sexually Advertising
As part of the rut, or breeding season, that they are in the middle of, bull moose seek to advertise their wares as far and as wide as possible. Information regarding the moose’s dominance is conveyed visually to cow moose (as well as other bull moose) by the size of a bull moose’s antlers. Additional information is conveyed olfactorily through the transfer of urinary pheromones via the bull moose’s bell, or dewlap (structure located under the chin of both bull and cow moose).
A moose’s bell increases in size with age (the pictured moose is just a yearling). While there are many theories as to the function of the bell (thermoregulation during the heat of summer, extra insulation for a moose’s chin when bedding down in snow and a secondary indicator of sex and age), it has been confirmed that the bell is an olfactory device that plays a role in communication.
During rut a bull often digs a depression (wallow) in the ground in which he urinates. He then proceeds to stamp and wallow in this depression, thoroughly soaking his antlers, belly and bell with his pheromone-laden urine. Cows are attracted to this pungent scent. Suspended from the bull’s body, the bell is an excellent way of dissipating these pheromones into the air – an innovative means of sexual advertising.
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Moose & Water
Moose spend a great deal of time in and near bodies of water, feeding, cooling themselves and avoiding insects. They are powerful swimmers, exhibiting great speed and endurance. Moose have been observed swimming distances up to 12 miles, and are known to occasionally swim from one point of land to another when the distance is shorter by water than by land. (Adult moose usually swim with only their head out of water, whereas yearlings have most of their back exposed.) Moose can spread their hooves, and this is ability is thought to enhance their paddling skills.
Much of a moose’s summer diet is semi-aquatic and aquatic vegetation, thus they feed near shore as well as in deeper water. Studies have shown that moose will dive as deep as 18 feet to obtain submerged plants. It is slightly unsettling to see them totally disappear for up to nearly a minute while foraging under water!
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Moose Gaining Fat Reserves
Being an ardent admirer of moose, I am devoting today’s post as well as the next two posts to the largest member of the deer family. Even if it weren’t seven to ten feet long and didn’t weigh over a thousand pounds, a moose would be an impressive mammal, with its high, humped shoulders, broad, pendulous muzzle and long, coarse hair.
Moose are voracious eaters, consuming roughly 44 pounds of plant material a day. In the winter their diet, mainly the bark of woody plants, provides only about 70% of the energy they need to survive. Thus, during the spring and summer they spend up to 12 hours a day foraging, often for aquatic plants, and acquire more than 200% of the energy they need. Hundreds of pounds are gained, with the excess stored as fat reserves for the coming months. Even so, moose lose up to 20% of their weight over the winter. (Thanks to all who wished me happy recharging!)
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Moose Scat Form Reflects Diet
Biologists estimate that moose defecate anywhere from 13 to 21 times a day. The appearance of moose scat, as well as deer, varies throughout the year. Its form depends in large part on the amount of moisture in the moose’s diet. Summer scat often looks like loose plops, or patties, due to heavy consumption of herbaceous aquatic and semi-aquatic vegetation. As fall approaches and a moose’s diet includes more woody vegetation, its scat consists of clumps of soft pellets. In the dead of winter, when moose are browsing almost exclusively on trees, individual dry pellets are produced. Spring scat is similar to fall scat, as moose are transitioning into a different diet during both of these seasons.
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Thrashing: Moose Rut Sign
During their breeding season, or rut, bull moose display a number of behaviors that are not commonly seen any other time of year, and many of these behaviors leave obvious signs, including broken branches, scraped bark, wallows and tracks. Bulls roam their home ranges, thrashing their antlers back and forth against shrubbery and saplings while leaving their scent. The sound of their antlers beating against vegetation is thought to signal the bull’s dominance to other males, as well as serve to attract females. The pictured broken balsam fir sapling and its frayed bark are evidence of this behavior.
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Annual Moose Molt
Many mammals have two molts a year, producing a winter and summer coat. Moose only have one annual molt, and it occurs in early spring. Their winter coat consists of long (up to six inches on neck and shoulders), hollow guard hairs and a thick undercoat. In early spring the faded and ragged winter hairs are shed and replaced with short, dark, shiny hairs. Molting starts on the shoulders and proceeds along the sides of the neck and back over the moose’s body. Adult bulls molt first, the cows and yearlings shortly after. Pictured is a beaver-cut tree which was used by a moose to scratch off loose winter hair.
Moose and White-tailed Deer Track Comparison
Even with the knowledge that the moose is the largest member of the deer family, the discrepancy between the size of its hoof and that of a white-tailed deer’s is impressive. A moose’s front foot track is somewhere between 4 ¼ ” and 7” long, whereas a deer’s front track is between 1 ¼ “ and 4” long. Both have hooves that are heart shaped, and point in the direction of travel. Deer are more hindered by snow than moose, so finding a deer taking advantage of a moose’s trail by stepping directly in the moose’s tracks (see photo) makes perfect sense. (The moose’s foot was dragging as it stepped into the snow, thus causing the groove that leads to the track.)
Moose in Rut
The mating season for moose (Alces alces) is just starting, and it peaks around the end of September or the first week in October. By this time bulls have shed the velvet that provided a blood supply to their antlers while they were growing during the summer. Occasionally you see the remains of the velvet hanging from their antlers at this time of year (see photograph). During mating season, bulls are rushing through the forest, seeking a receptive cow and engaging in mock battles with other bulls for the female’s attention. A bull uses his antlers in these challenges, engaging in “antler-pushing” with other males. He also uses his antlers as a tool for thrashing brush and for rooting plants from the bottom of ponds.
Moose Flies and Moose
My recent quest for finding moose was successful – and my most striking observation, other than their imposing size, was the presence of a multitude of flies on and around the hindquarters of every moose I saw. I assumed they were deer flies, but they didn’t appear to be bothering the moose and research revealed that, in fact, they were moose flies, Haematobosca alcis. These flies can be seen throughout the spring and summer in dense swarms over and on the rumps of moose — five hundred or more may accompany a single moose. Unlike most other biting insects, both male and female moose flies feed on their host’s blood. Although not considered a serious pest (moose tend to pay little attention to them), moose flies may be responsible for sores often found on the hind legs of moose. It is thought that female moose flies may be stimulated by gases released by the moose when it is defecating, after which the female flies descend and deposit eggs into crevices in the moose’s scat.
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