Pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) Fact Sheet: Diet & Feeding

• Opportunistic herbivores; browse and graze; are "dainty" feeders choosing a wide variety of plants (O'Gara 1978)
• Favor succulent, high-protein vegetation such as:
  • forbs
  • shrubs (rabbitbrush, sagebrush, bitterbrush, Prunus sp.)
  • grasses (bunchgrass, bluegrass, bottlebrush, ricegrass, squirreltail)
  • cacti (Opuntia sp.)
• Grass makes up only about 12 percent of diet; Pronghorn during a Montana winter starved on grasslands but survived in sagebrush habitats. ( O'Gara 1978)

• Pronghorn are ruminants with a four-chambered stomach; in ruminants, bacteria, protozoa, and fungi help digest tough plant cellulose
• During northern winters, Pronghorn are adept at pawing through
• Elongated head and pointed mouth parts aid in gathering of leaves and flowers, which are more nutritious that stems and twigs
• Peak foraging activity at dawn and dusk
• Spend 40 to 60 percent of time feeding
• Daily foraging movements of a herd vary from 0.1 to 0.8 km in the spring and summer to 3.2 to 9.7 km in the fall and winter
• Pronghorn practice forage switching from season to season to optimize dietary benefits from the most preferred, nutritious, and succulent species available
• 38 Pronghorn survive on the same amount of food required for one cow; 43.5 Pronghorn consumed the same amount of grass as one sheep (O'Gara 1978)

A newborn pronghorn being bottle-fed at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park

Image credit: © San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. All rights reserved.

Byers (1997)
Hansen & Clark (1977)
O'Gara (1978)
O’Gara & Yoakum (2004)