
A good Porcupine Puffer fish diet consists of:
- Hard shelled shrimp or frozen shrimp
- Clams
- Krill
- Squid
- Mussels
How to keep porcupines from eating wood?
Resources
- Forest & Grassland Health, Porcupine Damage, USDA Forest Service. https://www.fs.usda.gov/detailfull/r10/forest-grasslandhealth/?cid=FSEPRD566459%20&width=full Accessed 4/11/19.
- Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management. ...
- Olson, R. ...
- Wild Aware Utah. ...
- Many images came from Forestry Images https://www.forestryimages.org/
What kind of food does a porcupine eat?
- Brazilian porcupine, Coendou prehensilis
- Bicolored-spined porcupine, Coendou bicolor
- Andean porcupine, Coendou quichua
- Black dwarf (Koopman's) porcupine, Coendou nycthemera (koopmani)
- Rothschild's porcupine, Coendou rothschildi
- Santa Marta porcupine, Coendou sanctemartae
- Mexican hairy dwarf porcupine, Coendou mexicanus
What can eat a porcupine?
Porcupine diet by species
- African Brush-Tailed Porcupines. These are mostly herbivores who feed on tree bark, fruit bulbs, and leaves. ...
- Asiatic Brush-tailed Porcupines. ...
- Sumatran Porcupines. ...
- Cape Porcupines. ...
- African Crested Porcupines. ...
- Thick-Spined Porcupines. ...
- North American Porcupines. ...
- Brazilian Porcupines. ...
- Mexican Dwarf Hairy Porcupines. ...
- Stump-Tailed Porcupine. ...
Do porcupines eat apples?
They live primarily on the inner bark of trees during the winter, but also eat evergreen needles. Depending on the location, they may primarily feed off of sugar maple, ponderosa pine and hemlock trees. Porcupines eat fruit, especially apples. They also like the taste of salt and seek out salt licks and other areas of salt buildup.

What can I feed a wild porcupine?
In the spring and summer, porcupines shift to eating berries, seeds, grasses, leaves, roots and stems. At the Smithsonian's National Zoo, the porcupines eat herbivore pellets and a variety of fruits, vegetables and greens. Their favorite food item is corn on the cob.
Do porcupine eat carrots?
More videos on YouTube This porcupine also eats buds, sweet potatoes, fruits, seeds, and carrots.
Do porcupines eat apples?
Porcupines are avid consumers of apples. Typically, the supply of apples is depleted by the end of August, when porcupines move on to beechnuts and acorns. However, this year the apple crop was so plentiful that many apple trees still bear fruit and will provide sustenance for wildlife well into the winter.
Can you keep a porcupine as a pet?
A porcupine can be a pretty easygoing pet — but it can also be prickly. Yes, it's possible to pet a porcupine, and a number of states allow you to keep one as a pet. But safely handling this spiky rodent takes patience and skill.
Do porcupines eat fruit?
Most porcupines are strict herbivores and they mostly eat things like fruits, leaves, roots, and bulbs.
Can porcupines eat strawberries?
In a video uploaded to YouTube, the porcupine is seen gorging on strawberries, blueberries, vegetables of every stripe and whole grains and, well ... everything. Except, of course, meat. Porcupines are vegetarians.
Can porcupines eat corn?
Porcupines occasionally will cause considerable losses by damaging fruits, sweet corn, alfalfa, and small grains. They chew on hand tools and other wood objects while seeking salt.
Do porcupines eat cat food?
A porcupine in your yard is after food. This food can either be something you can pick up—like cat food—or it will be something much more difficult to deal with—like tasty tree bark.
What do porcupines like?
Some porcupines love wood and eat a lot of bark and stems. They also eat nuts, tubers, seeds, grass, leaves, fruit and buds. Though they don't eat meat, porcupines chew on bones to sharpen their teeth. Bones also give them important minerals, like salt and calcium, to keep them healthy.
Can you befriend a porcupine?
They're not that affectionate, but if they like you and trust you, they may rub noses with you. Also, you can pet them on their backs, but only if their quills are flattened. This is a bit like playing Russian roulette, though, because they spook easily, and those quills can easily come up mid-pet.
Is it safe to touch a porcupine?
What many people don't know is that porcupines can be kept as pets. This means that it is possible to touch a porcupine. If you want to pet a porcupine, you have to very gentle. As long as the porcupine is relaxed and not startled, they will generally not cause you any harm.
What is the lifespan of a porcupine?
Life Span. In the Wild: 5-7 years; In Human Care: up to 18 years.
What do porcupines eat in the summer?
During the summer, porcupines are known to eat things like fresh berries, grasses, leaves, roots, stems, and seeds. They may either find and eat th...
What is the natural predator of a porcupine?
Thanks to their spiky spines, or quills, porcupines in the wild have strong natural defenses. However, depending on their habitat, they may be targ...
What kinds of fruit do porcupines eat?
In the summer, porcupines across many habitats are known to eat many types of berries, which they may pull from bushes and other plants or eat righ...
What do porcupines eat?
Porcupines are strictly herbivores, preferring a diet of fruits, foliage, leaves, and twigs. Most porcupines’ diet changes depending on the season.
What are the roles of porcupines in the food chain?
Porcupines play an instrumental role in the animal food chain as prey, predators, and scavengers. Porcupines offer a great source of nutrients to organisms that predate them, such as mountain lions, wolves, bobcats, pumas, jaguars, wolverines, coyotes, and lynx, among others.
What is a thick spined porcupine?
The thick-spined porcupine is a dark brown animal with similar colored quills with a white base and tip. This rodent is classified under the family of Old-world porcupines. The thick spined porcupine is primarily herbivorous, preferring to eat vegetation and fallen fruits.
Why do porcupines come out at night?
During nightfall, porcupines come out from their hideouts to forage for food and eat. Other porcupines, mainly the stump-tailed porcupine was observed at the Sangay National Park in Ecuador to display both diurnal and nocturnal tendencies.
How much fat does an Alaskan porcupine lose in the winter?
More specifically, by the end of the winter season, the Alaskan porcupine loses about 30 percent of its fat reserves.
Where are brush tailed porcupines found?
The African regions where this porcupine is found are southern Zaire, the Gambia, and Western Kenya. This species is classified under the Old-world porcupines.
Where do porcupines live?
They grow up to a length of 3 feet. These porcupines are endemic to the central and southern parts of Africa. Their preferred habitats include open areas, preferably caves or crevices. The Cape porcupines are mostly herbivorous, preferring a diet of barks, fruits, bulbs, crops, and roots.
What do porcupines eat?
Porcupines are herbivores. In the wild their diet consists of twigs, berries, leaves, roots, stem and other vegetation. During winter seasons some species of porcupines also depend on barks and conifer needles. Their head is small but usually is also covered in quills.
What do African crested porcupines eat?
In the wild their diet varies from twigs, berries, barks, leaves, roots, stem and other vegetation depending on the seasons and species of porcupines.
How long do porcupines live?
In the wild their life span is 5-8 years but in captivity they can live for more than 10 years. Porcupines In The News: Now let us look at some popular porcupines in the news. Due to them, porcupines as pets have become more popular than ever. They are basically the great ambassadors for the porcupine species.
Why are porcupines considered exotic pets?
Porcupines are considered exotic pets because they are wild animals and not typically kept as pets. Their unique features have generated great interests from some humans but a majority of us wouldn’t be looking to keep porcupines as pets.
What makes porcupines nervous?
Loud noises and extreme sounds can make porcupines nervous. Something as simple as slamming the door little harder can lead to misunderstandings and consequently a disaster. Do not totally surprise them either. Make some kind of small noise or talk to them like you would do with any other pet while approaching them.
How big of a cage do porcupines need?
The general rule for the cage is the bigger the cage, the better it is. For a single arboreal porcupine, the minimum requirement is 5 x 5 x 8 (200 cu ft) and for every additional porcupine, the cage space should be increased by at least 25 %. The terrestrial porcupines are poor climbers.
What to use for porcupine cage?
However, I believe big wire cages are ideal for porcupines. For the bedding and at the bottom of the cage, straws or pine shavings can be used. Straws are ideal because they are easier to clean considering the fact that porcupines smell and their house needs to be cleaned almost everyday.
How often do porcupines eat
How often a porcupine eats depends almost solely on the availability of food.
What do porcupines eat – Their diet through the seasons
As with any animal, a porcupine’s diet also varies depending on the season, although they try to remain predominantly as plant-eaters throughout the year.
A diet rich in sodium
One particular thing about a porcupine’s diet, it’s that it needs to be very rich in sodium.
What do porcupine eat – Unusual diet
One unusual aspect is that porcupines will gnaw on the wood of outside water closets in camping grounds.
Porcupine diet by species
Here we’ll move on to how the porcupine diet varies based on each species.
What is the diet of porcupines?
North American porcupines ( Erethizon dorsatum) feast on a high-potassium, low-sodium diet of foliage, causing them to excrete high levels of sodium. This creates a sodium-potassium imbalance.
Why do porcupines chew through walls?
Porcupines used to be considered a much bigger problem for home owners. In the 1800s, when pioneers kept large quantities of salt in their cabins, porcupines reportedly chewed through walls at night to get at the stash. Porcupine snack!
Do porcupines need salt?
This creates a sodium-potassium imbalance. While research has shown that porcupines can physiologically tolerate this imbalance at times of the year when their mobility is limited (like during heavy snowfall), most of the year they have a craving for salt. They often seek out natural mineral licks for their needs.
Do porcupines have brakes?
The reintroduction of fishers, a major porcupine predator, keeps their populations in check. Today, porcupines can be at worst a localized problem – although a not insignificant one is your car has no brakes or you’re literally up the creek without a paddle. Still, they’re fascinating critters.
How to keep porcupines from eating trees?
For porcupines, there are two places you can apply it for fast protection. First, use it on any tree you want to keep from being eaten. Simply treat the trunk from the ground up to at least 6 feet high.
What do porcupines like?
Porcupines love rose bushes, pansies, lily pads, all types of berries, corn, and several other garden favorites. Rabbits and deer are often blamed for this damage when many times it is being done by porcupines.
What to do if a porcupine chews on your tires?
If you have a nuisance porcupine chewing up your tires, trees, outside furniture or yard tools, try Pest Rid spray to stop them.
How long does a porcupine repellent last?
Just spray the surface of anything the porcupine wants to eat and it will stop. Pest Rid treatments will last 2-4 weeks per application and can withstand normal rainfall.
How many litters do porcupines have?
Porcupines have one litter in the spring. They almost always have one young and twins are very rare. Their gestation is long for a rodent (about seven months). Young porcupines can walk almost immediately and will climb trees within two days. At ten days, most are on their own.
What kind of trees do porcupines live on?
Although porcupines are great tree climbers and can live on several species of trees, they seem to prefer, white, birch, ponderosa, pinion, hemlock, spruce, elm and poplar. When living in the woods and feeding on wild trees, porcupines go unnoticed.
How big is a porcupine?
The tree porcupine is a heavy, stout animal growing to be 10-20 lbs or even larger. Their entire body is covered with quills which can number over 20,000. Only the face, under body and under the tail will remain quill free.
How to get rid of porcupine?
A simple approach to remove porcupine from your premises is to catch them with a live trap and release them at a distant location. Live trapping is in fact a securest and efficient way to keep these animals at bay without making them any harm. Below is a guideline with tips and a few product recommendations which will hopefully help you lure ...
What to do before trapping a porcupine?
This is important as it will help you to use the right bait and techniques that are specifically meant for capturing the porcupine. As an identification check for their quills.
How much does a porcupine weigh?
These quills are several inches in length. A porcupine is an animal that weighs about 30 pounds, measures about 25 to 36 inches in length with a tail of 8 to 10 inches. Usually they are of grey, white or brown color and weigh around 12 to 35 pounds.
How to trap porcupines at night?
After you have noticed all the places with high porcupine activity, pick the ones where you want to put the trap first. Choose the area where the porcupine is most possibly be found at night. When positioning the animal trap make sure the trap is placed on an even surface so that it works 100%.
How to get a porcupine away from my house?
After getting approval from your local authorities it’s time to relocate the porcupine away from your property. Pick the trap calmly without making any noise. Put a towel or paper over it to avoid scaring the animal. Also, keep yourself protected from any injury from a porcupine by wearing padded clothing and gloves.
What bait do you use to lure a porcupine?
If you don’t have an apple or other fruits available, you can also try some of these baiting options to lure the porcupine: Salt mixed with cooking oil. Saltwater soaked cloth, sponge, wood, or leather. Fresh bark, leaves, veggie scraps such as pumpkin, carrot, or turnip.
What is a porcupine?
Porcupine is a mammal that belongs to the family of rodents. It appears to be different from others (in his family) due to its unique features and spines that cover all his body. As porcupines are relatively big, steady, and comparatively docile animals, if provoked they may get extremely aggressive and may fight with their sharp quills.
