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What Do Chipmunks Eat?
Which of these foods do you think are good foods for Chipmunks. Put the mouse pointer over a food to find out.
An Acorn
Gum Balls
Raisins
Bird Eggs
Bread and Cheese
An Apple
Chocolate
Beetles
Sunflower Seeds
Strawberries
Chipmunks live mostly on seeds, nuts and fruit. They especially like ripe acorns and other nuts and seeds from pine cones.Green acorns are not good for chipmunks. They also eat eggs, insects and worms. Although they may steal from your garden, they also eat garden pests such as snails and slugs. Chipmunks have huge cheek pouches in which to carry seeds they gather. If you had cheek pouches as stretchy as a chipmunk's, you could fit eight whole oranges in your mouth! When chipmunks store food in their cheek pouches, they first bite off any sharp pointy parts so they don't poke holes in their cheeks
Chipmunks bury nuts and seeds in the ground. When squirrels and chipmunks bury seeds, they sometimes forget where they buried them and the seeds grow. This helps a tree to spread its seeds so they have a better chance of growing. In this way squirrels and chipmunks help forests.
Chipmunks also store food for winter in their burrow. When they wake up during the winter (about every two weeks), they don't have to go out in the cold to find food.
If you put out food to attract chipmunks in your yard, sunflower seeds, dry corn, wild bird food and nuts are the best choices. Peanuts can be dangerous because if the shells get wet they tend to grow mold which can make animals sick. Peanuts also swell up in their stomachs. Rice and popcorn can be bad choices for the same reason. Don't give them candy or potato chips or other snack foods. They might like them, but they aren't nutritious. Never put out chocolate or chewing gum!
You might want to feed them away from your house so they aren't tempted to come inside to look for food. You also might want to put their food away from any bird feeders you have so the birds don't have to fight with chipmunks and squirrels for food. If you have a bird feeder on a pole or a rope, there are squirrel baffles you can buy to keep the rodents out of the feeder. An aluminum pie pan can be used too.
Baffle on a Bird Feeder
It is not a good idea to feed chipmunks and squirrels from your hand. They rarely bite people to hurt them, but they might accidentally bite a finger while trying to grab food or if they are cornered and afraid. Think about it! If they have teeth strong enough to bite through nut shells, what could they do to your finger! There are diseases such as hanta virus that are carried by rodents, but less than 1% of the animals found to have rabies are chipmunks. Rabies is most common in carnivores, especially skunks, raccoons, foxes and wild dogs; or in bats.
What Do Chipmunks Eat?
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