The cattle and sheep industries of Australia are almost entirely dependent on grazing animals. Weston and Hogan (1973) estimated that less than 5% of the feed consumed by domestic ruminants in this country is derived from sown grain crops, and only 5 or 6% from conserved forage. Consequently effective management and use of pastures are of prime importance for efficient animal production. Althou...

Semi-natural dry grassland sites are of great importance for nature conservation because they support high species diversity and the abundance of "Red-List" species. Grazing has proved to be a successful management tool in terms of maintenance and restoration of biodiversity. For a deeper understanding of the effects of different grazers on species biodiversity in dry grasslands, it is necessar...

to reach the desirable ecosystem management, determining the animal dietselection, which is one of the components of rangeland ecosystem, is important. therefore, inorder to determine the grazing behavior and diet selection of sheep and goat, the uplandrangeland of northern part of alborz was selected. in this study, the first weeks of july andaugust of 2009 were chosen for the grazing period o...

New methodology for measuring forage condensed tannin (CT) content is described and the effects of CT upon forage feeding and nutritive value for ruminant animals are reviewed. CT react with forage proteins in a pH-reversible manner, with reactivity determined by the concentration, structure and molecular mass of the CT. Increasing concentrations of CT in Lotus corniculatus and Lotus pedunculat...

Livestock grazing, which has a large influence on habitat structure, is associated with the widespread decline of various bird species across the world, yet there are few experimental studies that investigate how grazing pressure influences avian reproduction. We manipulated grazing pressure using a replicated field experiment, and found that the offspring sex ratio of a common upland passerine...

Cattle and sheep grazed together and separately from April to October during 3 yr. Initial forage composition was 29% Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.), 11% white clover (Trifolium repens L.), and 60% weeds. There were six Angus cow-calf pairs or six ewes (1/2 Dorset x 1/4 Finn x 1/4 Rambouillet) with 11 lambs per each of three pasture replications for single animal species. Six cow-calf pa...

BACKGROUND Methane (CH(4)) uptake by steppe soils is affected by a range of specific factors and is a complex process. Increased stocking rate promotes steppe degradation, with unclear consequences for gas exchanges. To assess the effects of grazing management on CH(4) uptake in desert steppes, we investigated soil-atmosphere CH(4) exchange during the winter-spring transition period. METHODOL...

In each of two experiments, four groups of 10 female Scottish Blackface sheep grazed for 2 weeks at each of four space allowances, according to a Greco-Latin Square design. Space allowances were 80, 100, 133 or 200m(2) per head in Experiment 1 and 50, 67, 100 or 200m(2) per head in Experiment 2. Confounding of space allowance and grazing pressure was avoided by the use of a rotational grazing s...

The objective of these studies was to compare preference for leafy spurge (Euphorbiu es& L.) by sheep and goats. Study 1 was a choice test that paired leafy spurge with either arrowleaf balsamroot (Balsamorhiza sagittata (Pursh)Nutt.) or crested wheatgrass (Agropyron cristatum (L.)Gaertn.) for a 30 minute feeding period. Study 2 consisted of 3 grazing trials on spurgeinfested pastures. Differen...

Rutter, S. M. 2010. Review: Grazing preferences in sheep and cattle: Implications for production, the environment and animal welfare. Can. J. Anim. Sci. 90: 285 293. The evolutionary and domestic ancestors of sheep and cattle will have evolved diet selection behaviours that enabled them to select a diet that met their individual nutrient requirements whilst minimising the risk of being killed t...