Woodchucks prefer to eat fresh green vegetation. They eat a wide variety of wild plants, clover and alfalfa, and garden vegetables if they can get them. On rare occasions, they eat snails, insects, or young birds that they come upon by accident. Early in spring they eat bark and small branches.
Young woodchucks are born in Canada, mainly in May following a gestation, or pregnancy, period of 30 days. One litter, usually with four young, is produced per year. Woodchucks are blind and helpless at birth, about 10 cm in length and about 30 g in weight. At about 28 days old, their eyes are open, and they are covered with short hair. They are weaned, or have made the transition from mother’s milk to solid foods, when they start to emerge from the burrow at five to six weeks of age. Woodchucks grow rapidly. They weigh 570 g at eight weeks of age and become very fat for hibernation. Woodchucks have been known to live for 10 years, although the average life span is probably much less.| Classification: | ||
| Kingdom: | Animalia | |
| Phylum: | Chordata | |
| Class: | Mammalia | |
| Order: | Rodentia | |
| Family: | Sciuridae | |
| Genus: | Marmota | |
| Species: | Marmota monax | |
