Examples of Elk Forage

[StartMyHunt]

Many of you have inquired about what exactly quality elk forage looks like and the types of plants that elk will predominantly eat in the Rocky Mountain area. If you find any of the following plants in abundance, chances are good that elk will be nearby.

Arrowleaf Groundsel

Arrowleaf Groundsel.jpg (483.38 KiB) Viewed 8212 times

Beargrass

Beargrass.jpg (196.47 KiB) Viewed 8212 times

Elk Sedge

Elk Sedge.jpg (487.17 KiB) Viewed 8212 times

More to follow...

[StartMyHunt]

Flowering Elkweed

Flowering Elkweed.jpg (201.49 KiB) Viewed 8210 times

Needle and Thread Grass

Needle and Thread Grass.jpg (110.71 KiB) Viewed 8210 times

Northern Sweetvetch

Northern Sweetvetch.jpg (184.2 KiB) Viewed 8210 times

[StartMyHunt]

Quaking Aspen

Quaking Aspen Leaves.jpg (63.22 KiB) Viewed 8208 times

Rough Fescue

Rough Fescue.jpg (72.4 KiB) Viewed 8208 times

Timothy Grass

Timothy Grass.jpg (43.24 KiB) Viewed 8208 times

[ChrisB]

Great pics and helpful, Mike!

[itsnlkthing]

Thanks for posting. ..very good information!

[Vids]

I agree, very good info. Thanks!

I was just thinking on my hunt this year that I need to learn more about this stuff. Are there any books you could recommend that discuss elk food sources, and the different times of year they may eat them?

[StartMyHunt]

I used a wildlife biology text book that I have had for nearly 25 years now for most of the information as far as food sources. I will see if I can still find it at home and get you the name. As for the different types of plants that elk eat during the year, it can be generally broken down as follows--

Spring/early summer elk like to eat the forbs (arrowleaf groundsel, Elkweed, northern sweetvetch, lupine, and beargrass) and the new aspen, willow, and service berry shoots as well as any of the grasses that are green. These all offer a high amount of nutrition at this time and help the elk recover quickly from the meager offerings of their winter diet.

During the late summer/fall many of the forbs will have died off from the open meadows unless there was plenty of late precipitation. However, forbs may still be present under the forest canopy and elk will eat these first. If forbs are not present in abundance, elk will move to the grasses.

Late fall/winter elk will eat whatever they can find in the snow. At this time, they have a tendency to try to find buried grasses, but will also eat the twigs from shrubs such as aspen, willow, serviceberry, and bitterbrush. During severe winters, they will even resort to eating sagebrush and the bark off of aspen trees.

Hope this helps.

[redtop]

There is also a certain mushroom that appears in the forest in September that the elk seem to go nuts for. They wander around and eat every one they see. I've had good luck hunting elk in the timber early in the morning while they are rooting around for these.

[ishy]

Elkmapguy, if it's the one I have seen it's Elk ecology and management. They have it at our local library. Great stuff, and the diet it's somewhere in the middle and about 10-12 pages of nothing but elk eating habits by season. I made a copy of the all the diet info to keep in my own library. I pitty the biology student that had to sift through the chit to get that info.

[Indian Summer]

All I think of when I read this thread are the places full of forage and prime habitat with zero elk. To me as long as a place isn't just solid timber there is food. The other factors are more important.