
Food and Water 
An omnivorous feeder, the junglefowl takes a wide variety 
of plant and animal foods. Grain, grass, wild shrub and tree seeds, 
berries, fruits, leaves, shoots and roots as well as ants, flies, 
beetles, spiders, small snails, earthworms and lizards are eaten. 
Vegetable matter by volume represents about 90 percent; animal matter, 
2 to 3 percent; and miscellaneous grit and trash, 7 to 8 percent of 
the normal crop contents. The bird is also a scavenger and occasionally 
fills its crop with dung in the manner of domestic poultry. 
Birds often feed in family parties of a cock and three to 
four hens, early and late, in stubble or wild mustard fields adjacent 
to wooded areas, along roads and firelines or in forest clearings. 
Often while hunting one hears them scratching about among the leaves, 
and thoroughly dug-up patches of the forest floor are a common sight 
where junglefowl are abundant. Though mostly ground feeders, they do 
not hesitate to perch on any branch that will bear their weight in 
search of wild fruits, including those of the pipal and banyan trees. 
The seeds of bamboo also are attractive. 
No detailed food-habits study of this species is available, 
so under the FGI Program, 37 crops, mostly from the six months' hunting 
season, have been collected and examined. Some 30 different kinds of 
seeds and many insects have been found but less than half have been 
identified. The following is a list of those recognized to date, 
together with the number of crops from which they were identified: 
Number Number 
Plants crops Animals crops 
Trichosanthes cucumerina 6 Hymenoptera (ants) 7 
Rubus sp. 5 Diptera (leaf miner) 3 
Carissa opaca 4 Coleoptera (beetles) 6 
Zizyphus jujuba 4 Pulmonata (snails) 4 
Shorea robusta 3 Isoptera (termites) 4 
Digitaria sp. 3 Hemiptera (bugs) 3 
Stellaria media 2 Diptera (flies) 2 
Oryza sativa (rice) 2 Lepidoptera (moth pupae) 2 
Grass (Panicum and others) 2 Aranae (spiders) 2 
Roots 2 Orthoptera (cricket) 1 
Oxalis corniculata 1 Diplopoda (millipede) 1 
Adiantum caudatum 1 
Rungia parviflora 1 Miscellaneous 
Solanum sp. 1 
sedge tubers 1 Grit 8 
Clay 1 
Sand 1 
Feces 2 
11 
