Dietary Selection by Goats and Sheep in a Deciduous Woodland of Northeastern Brazil
Issue Date
1986-01-01Keywords
semiarid zonessheep
adaptability
diet studies
goats
Brazil
woodlands
grazing behavior
dry environmental conditions
deciduous seasonal forests
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Pfister, J. A., & Malechek, J. C. (1986). Dietary selection by goats and sheep in a deciduous woodland of northeastern Brazil. Journal of Range Management, 39(1), 24-28.Publisher
Society for Range ManagementJournal
Journal of Range ManagementDOI
10.2307/3899680Additional Links
https://rangelands.org/Abstract
The dietary botanical composition of indigenous sheep and goats was determined in the semiarid tropics of northeastern Brazil, using esophageally fistulated animals. Sheep and goats selected similar diets during the dry season (May-Dec.). Main dietary components for both species were dried forbs and browse. Leaf litter from the deciduous trees provided the majority of dry season forage (500-1,500 kg/ha) and was a crucial element of dry season diets (20-70%). During the wet season (Jan.-Apr.), sheep selected mainly grasses and forbs, while goats rapidly shifted among grasses, forbs, and browse. By displaying attributes of both browsers and grazers, neither sheep nor goats conformed to traditionally rigid characterization. We found no indication that goats are better adapted for survival in this tropical environment than are sheep because of the botanical composition of their diets. Management implications of this study for the caatinga vegetation zone are discussed.Type
textArticle
Language
enISSN
0022-409Xae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.2307/3899680