Food selection by ruminants.

Prevalence of Common Food-Borne Parasitic Diseases in Slaughtered Ruminants in West Part of Iran

Background: To obtain update information on the prevalence of common food-borne parasitic diseases, this study designed to determine the prevalence of hydatidosis and liver flukes (Fasciola spp. and Dicrocoelium dendriticum) in the slaughtered cattle, sheep, and goats in Kermanshah, Iran from 2013 to 2016. Methods: In this four-year retrospective survey, information on the prevalence of hydati...

Evolutionary adaptations of ruminants and their potential relevance for modern production systems.

Comparative physiology applies methods established in domestic animal science to a wider variety of species. This can lead to improved insight into evolutionary adaptations of domestic animals, by putting domestic species into a broader context. Examples include the variety of responses to seasonally fluctuating environments, different adaptations to heat and drought, and in particular adaptati...

Rumen physiology constrains diet niche: linking digestive physiology and food selection across wild ruminant species

Assembling a Diet from Different Places

Resources are unequally distributed over the landscapes and it is only seldom that food of a herbivore at a given spot exactly matches its requirements. However, because non-sessile animals can move, they can assemble a diet from different patches that, in its total, does meet the intake requirements. Because herbivores of different sizes have different requirements for energy and nutrients, a ...

The allometry of patch selection in ruminants.

An axiomatic feature of food consumption by animals is that intake rate and prey abundance are positively related. While this has been demonstrated rigorously for large herbivores, it is apparent from patch selection trials that grazers paradoxically tend to prefer short, sparse swards to tall, dense swards. Indeed, migratory herbivores often shift from areas of high to low sward biomass during...

Digestion in Ruminants

Ruminants, cloven-hoofed mammals of the order Artiodactyla, obtain their food by browsing or grazing, subsisting on plant material (Hungate, 1966). Today, 193 species of living ruminants exist in 6 families: Antilocapridae, Bovidae, Cervidae, Giraffidae, Moschidae and Tragulidae (Nowak, 1999). The number of wild ruminants is about 75 million and of domesticated about 3.6 billion (Hackmann and S...