Some effects of a rotational grazing treatment on cattle grazing behavior
Issue Date
1989-07-01Keywords
grazing timecontinuous grazing
grazing experiments
stocking rate
pastures
rotational grazing
grazing intensity
grazing behavior
spatial distribution
cattleTexas
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Walker, J. W., & Heitschmidt, R. K. (1989). Some effects of a rotational grazing treatment on cattle grazing behavior. Journal of Range Management, 42(4), 337-342.Publisher
Society for Range ManagementJournal
Journal of Range ManagementDOI
10.2307/3899506Additional Links
https://rangelands.org/Abstract
Research was conducted on the effects of rotational grazing (RG) compared to continuous grazing (CG) on the behavior of cattle grazing on rangelands. Different livestock densities in the RG treatments were created by varying the size of paddocks in a 465-ha, 16-paddock, cell designed RG treatment stocked at a rate of 3.6 ha/cow/yr. Paddock sizes of 30 and 10-ha were used to simulate RG with 14 (RG-14) and 42-paddocks (RG-42), respectively. The CG treatment consisted of a 248-ha pasture stocked at 5.9 ha/cow/yr. Data were collected using vibracorders, pedometers and observation to estimate time (min/day) spent: intense grazing, search grazing, trailing, or sleeping; distance walked (km/day), and individual animal space ( m2/animal) in grazing subherds. Total grazing time did not vary among grazing treatments, but the components of total grazing (i.e., intense and search grazing) did vary among treatments. Cattle in the RG-14 paddocks spent less time search grazing compared to the ones in the other treatments presumably because the rotational grazed paddocks were more uniform because of less mixing of live and dead forage. Search grazing was highest in the RG-42 paddocks which may be due to the high stock density in this treatment coupled with an attempt to maintain individual animal space. Grazing time tended to be longer the first day in a RG-14 paddock than the last. Time spent trailing and the distance walked increased as the frequency of rotation increased among the different treatments. Sleeping was similar among grazing treatments. Individual animal space within a grazing subherd decreased as the stock density increased because of the grazing treatment.Type
textArticle
Language
enISSN
0022-409XScopus Count
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