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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. 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. 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. 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. 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.