Elk - artiodactyl, also known as moose, is the largest representative of the deer family. This animal reaches a height of 3 meters, has huge horns, the mass of which in adults is more than 25 kg. Many are interested in why moose love salt, why they eat it. We offer to find out.
Diet
Sukhata belong to herbivores, food for them are:
- shoots and small branches of trees and shrubs;
- herbs;
- mushrooms;
- berries (lingonberries, blueberries);
- mosses and lichens.
Often animals and aquatic plants - water lilies and egg capsules regale themselves. Let's find out why moose love salt. Since the animal is a herbivore, with its natural food - plant food - they do not receive the minerals and trace elements necessary for the full development, including salt. Therefore, they are forced to mine it in other ways.
Main reasons
Being herbivores, moose eat plant food, which practically does not include sodium chloride (aka salt). In contrast, plants contain large amounts of potassium. Its excess and lack of sodium lead to the fact that in herbivores, including dried ones, hydrochloric acid, necessary for digestion, ceases to be produced in the gastric juice. A lack of sodium also affects blood composition.
The composition of salt includes trace elements that are necessary for the normal functioning of all organ systems in a wild animal:
- magnesium;
- calcium;
- phosphorus.
Salt contributes to the normal course of pregnancy in males, provides growth of horns in males, normalizes metabolism and water-salt balance.
How moose themselves get salt
We learned why moose love salt. Consider where in nature they find it. Animals get salt from three sources:
- Water (small, slowly flowing rivers with swampy floodplains).
- Marshes (their dead ones are visited less often than rivers, but nevertheless the swampy areas are also popular).
- On land (dry salt licks, outcrops of soil, often look like yellow or white clay).
In search of food, moose make quite long trips. So, naturalists noted that these animals can be found near the sea, to which they traveled for many days. Here moose greedily lick the remains of sea foam, washed ashore by the surf. These artiodactyls are also noticed for the fact that in winter they lick salt from the roads.
Often animals drink water from swamps for several hours to satisfy the body's need for salt. Solonetzes are also found in mountainous areas.
They are visited by animals and salt marshes, where they lick salty land. For one meal, an adult sokhaty can eat several kilograms of salt. Often, artiodactyls' love of sodium is used by hunters and poachers, feeding animals and killing them.
Salt starvation
Having considered why moose love to eat salt, we will get acquainted with what happens when animals lack it. They begin to experience salt hunger, since plant food is not able to saturate their organisms with the necessary elements. That is why artiodactyls begin to greedily lick salt in places where it is specially left by people, or on salt licks. Most often this happens with the advent of spring.
Almost all representatives of the herbivorous fauna can encounter salt starvation. It manifests itself in the following signs:
- Beasts begin to feel weak.
- They lose their appetite.
- Animals that are deficient in sodium are more susceptible to disease.
But such hunger is unknown to predators: they get salt from the meat and blood of eaten herbivores. And the sahats relate specifically to herbivores. Here is the answer to the question "why moose love to eat salt" - they need it for a full life. These artiodactyls are happy to enjoy salt, which wildlife lovers carefully stump for them.
How do salt licks
Knowing why moose love salt, some hunters use this information to make artificial salt licks, which become a real bait for large artiodactyls. This method of hunting is especially popular in the spring and summer, when animals begin to actively replenish the supply of mineral substances in the body, which has become impoverished during the winter. For the manufacture of solonetz, you can use any salt, but stone is best.
Hunters lay salt licks in clay and peat, because in these rocks sodium retains its properties for a long time. Salt is also placed in wooden troughs.
Salt is the most important element for the normal functioning of the body of any living creature, but herbivores do not receive it together with their usual food. That is why moose love to lick salt from various sources. This is used by hunters and poachers who teach animals to salt licks and kill them.