Condors prefer to eat dead animal carcasses. They use their beaks to shred and tear the meat. Dead farm animals, like cows, chickens, sheep, goats, pigs and deer, are what condors prefer most.
Condors that are living by lakes, rivers, oceans, or the sea often will eat any type of carrion they can find. This includes whales, sea lions and dead or live fish. They also will wander around beaches looking for bird nests to eat the eggs. Condors rarely ever eat other sea birds and they don't eat reptiles.
Condors don't actually hunt themselves, although they will go after an animal that already has been injured or otherwise weakened. Although they are strong and forceful they don't have the sharp talons needed to kill live prey. Instead they use their impeccable vision to watch other scavenger birds, or to find weak and dying animals. They will watch predator birds, like hawks and eagles, kill smaller mammals and then take the kill for themselves, using their size and strength to steal the kill. A condor can fly up to 50 mph, and they fly more than 100 miles a day to search for food. Condors have no sense of smell, so they primarily rely on their eyesight.
Condors will eat as much as they possibly can at one time, until they sometimes are unable to get off the ground. This can be as much as two or three pounds of food in a single sitting. They can go several days or even two weeks without eating, and then gorge themselves with food when they find it.