Happy Thanksgiving from Grinder and Coola!
Posted by Devin Manky October 9, 2017
Grinder and Coola, our two resident Grizzly Bears, have now entered their period of Hyperphagia - which is just a fancy technical word for pigging out. While we only can justify eating to excess on holidays like Thanksgiving, Grinder and Coola do it for over a month each year as they bulk up for winter.
They have begun to put on a lot of weight for their upcoming winter dormancy period. Grinder weighed in at around 780 lbs just the other day - on his 'weigh' to 900 lbs for hibernation! Coola still won't step on the scale for us but he's typically 20% heavier than Grinder so we anticipate him to be breaking 900lbs now and 1000 before winter!
Last week as a treat we fed them some pumpkin! As you can tell from the photos the pumpkins didn't last very long. They aren't big fans of the outer rind but love the inside flesh and made quick work of the pumpkins to get to the tasty innards.
Bears in the wild love finding wild vegetables to help pack on the calories but of course most would be at the streams fishing for salmon. Grinder and Coola are getting salmon a few times a week now as part of their weight gain system.
They will stay in this state until the first snows come and the days get really short. Then it's time to build a bed and prepare for their long winter sleep!
Make sure you get up before then to say goodnight!
