Pika's Diet

The pika is a relative of hares and rabbits, but a much more vocal animal, communicating with its brethren through a series of calls. There are 19 species of pikas in the world, but only two live in North America---the collared pica and the American pika. Picas resemble small guinea pigs and they inhabit the alpine terrain of the western part of the continent, depending on grasses, flowers and plain old hard work to survive.

Types of Food

Picas subsist on vegetation, typically making their home in rockslides, near boulders and other rocky locations close to a grassy meadow or field. The pica eats grasses, forbs, herbs, shrubs, weeds and wildflowers, consuming both the stems and the leaves of any plant it can digest. In the spring and early summer, the pika feeds leisurely on green plants, eating them where they find them if enough cover exists to hide the animals from danger.

Winter Survival

The pika will not hibernate during the cold months; it remains active and depends upon the food it puts away when vegetation was abundant in the warm weather to keep it alive. The pika will eat from its reserves as long as they last. When the hay the pika cut is gone, the mammal stays alive by finding and eating such things as lichens.

Storage Time Frame

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game website reports that pikas cut grasses and other plants to store for the long winter months when green plants are not available in the snow and ice. This cutting occurs around July, with the pika more guarded of its territory into August and September. By fall, the pika's activity level concerning storing food reaches a crescendo, as it scurries about, stealing this "hay" from others and protecting its own larder.

Pika Hay

The pika will carry cut stems of plants back to its home, where it goes about the task of meticulously drying it and then putting it where it can access it for later use as food, deep inside its own den. Pikas turn the plants over to dry them thoroughly in the sunshine and move them to shelter when rain threatens to make them wet again. Pika hay piles show up under overhangs, in the crevices of rocks and around boulders. Some of the piles can be as wide as 2 feet and equally high---with enough hay to fill a bushel basket in some instances. The pika will create several piles, but one is typically the main pile upon which it concentrates the most effort.

Feeding Territories

The feeding territories of a pika can cover as much as half an acre of land. In many instances, these territories overlap one another with the pikas moving back and forth from theirs into another's to steal hay and cut grass. This makes for some interesting behavior as the pikas often throw caution to the wind as they prepare for their long winters.