What Do White-Tailed Deer Eat?

White-tailed deer look for food around dawn and dusk each day. Deer are herbivores, which means they eat only plants. What they eat depends on the season and where they are living. In spring and summer, favorite foods for deer include leaves, fruits, and grasses. In fall and winter, they eat fungi, acorns, twigs, and buds from plants.

Like most hooved animals, white-tailed deer are ruminants. They have four-chambered stomachs that help them eat hard-to-digest foods. The first two chambers of the stomach break down food and create something called cud. The cud is then regurgitated, chewed some more, and finally, swallowed and digested.

White-tailed deer love to eat leafy green plants. But their special stomachs also allow them to eat twigs and woody plants that other animals cannot digest.View Larger Image

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