Grass, and lots of it
Zebras are grazers. More than 90 percent of a plains zebra's diet is grass, and a Grevy's zebra lives mainly on grass too, adding bark, fruit and leaves. Mountain zebras both graze and browse, on grasses, shrubs and leaves.
When the grass runs short
As the dry season arrives and the grass dies back, zebra herds travel to find food and water. In very dry spells plains zebras dig up roots and bulbs, and in the hardest times they strip bark from trees and eat other coarse plants. Grevy's zebras eat more leaves and shrubs in a drought.
How much of the day zebras spend eating
Most of it. Plains zebras eat for about half the day, and for more than 80 percent of it when food is poor. The Smithsonian's National Zoo says Grevy's zebras spend about 60 percent of the day eating, and up to 80 percent in drier times.
Why they eat so much
Zebras are hindgut digesters. Food moves through them quickly, in about 30 to 45 hours, up to 45 percent faster than through a cow. That lets them live on coarse, low quality grass, but they have to eat a great deal of it. Their teeth are long and thickly enameled, made for chewing tough grass all day.
How often zebras drink
Plains zebras go to water almost every day. Grevy's zebras, from drier country, can go several days without water, up to about five, though a mother nursing a foal needs to drink every day or two. Mountain zebras dig for water with their sharp hooves.
What zebras eat in zoos
Zebras at the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Zoo Safari Park eat grass hay. The Smithsonian's National Zoo gives its Grevy's zebras hay and a manufactured pellet, with salt licks, and its mountain zebras hay, grass, pellets and leafy branches.
What Rubs eats
Rubs is the one zebra at Kaleidoscope Desert. He eats hay, and he shares it with his herd, the six mini horses and two mini donkeys, who move around the grounds with him.
Kaleidoscope Desert is a nonprofit art and animal sanctuary on 7.5 acres in Morongo Valley, California, 15 minutes from Joshua Tree and 20 minutes from Palm Springs, where more than 100 animals roam free among the art.
You meet them on the Sanctuary Tour, a guided walk of about 90 minutes that runs daily, with someone who knows every resident by name and their stories. The animals come over on their own terms. Every visit is for adults, 18 and over.
100% of proceeds go to the animals: their rescue, their care, and the sanctuary they live in. Kaleidoscope Desert Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit.