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Tall fescue sward structure affects the grazing process of sheep
- Source :
- Scientific Reports, Scientific Reports, Vol 10, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2020)
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Nature Publishing Group UK, 2020.
-
Abstract
- The study of factors influencing animal intake can provide a better understanding of the dynamics of the pasture ecosystem and serve as a basis for managing livestock in a more efficient way. We measured different sward surface heights of tall fescue in the process of short-term intake rate of sheep. There was a significant effect of sward surface height on herbage mass (P P P = 0.02), bite mass (P = 0.01) and short-term intake rate (P = 0.03) of sheep. There was a quadratic fit between time per bite and bite mass (P = 0.006). Multivariate analysis showed that the short-term intake rate and bite mass were positively correlated (r = 0.97), bite rate and total jaw movement rate were positively correlated but both were negatively correlated with time per bite. The sward surface height of tall fescue corresponding to the maximum short-term herbage intake rate was 22.3 cm. The underlying processes were driven by the bite mass, which was influenced by the leaf lamina bulk density and its consequences upon time per bite. This sward surface height can be adopted as a pre-grazing target for rotational stocking systems to optimize sheep nutrition on pastures.
- Subjects :
- Grassland ecology
Festuca
Intake rate
Behavioural ecology
lcsh:Medicine
Biology
Pasture
Article
Animal science
Grazing
parasitic diseases
Animals
Herbivory
lcsh:Science
Ecosystem
geography
Multidisciplinary
geography.geographical_feature_category
Sheep
lcsh:R
0402 animal and dairy science
Jaw movement
04 agricultural and veterinary sciences
040201 dairy & animal science
Bulk density
Leaf lamina
040103 agronomy & agriculture
0401 agriculture, forestry, and fisheries
lcsh:Q
Agroecology
Brazil
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20452322
- Volume :
- 10
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Scientific Reports
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....ee7b14606960800d8ec56ee0df8a85aa