Summer Diet of Spanish Goats Grazing Chaparral

Abstract

The browsing preference and feed intake of Spanish goats was studied on a 0.2-ha chaparral field in which a wild fire had occurred 5 years earlier. The dominant shrub species were chamise (Adenostoma fasciculatum), scrub oak (Quercus dumosa), eastwood manzanita (Arctostaphylos glandulosa), and ceanothus (Ceanothus greggii). Four goats with esophageal fistulae were used to sample the forage. The browsing preference of Spanish goats was highly directed (about 80%) towards scrub oak and chamise. The remainder of the diet was mostly grasses and forbs, while eastwood manzanita and cupleaf ceanothus made a negligible contribution. Shrub preference was not related to availability as manzanita and ceanothus had the highest volume and were the most abundant species. Regression models to estimate IVDMD from the diet's chemical and botanical contents were derived. IVDMD of esophageal samples was positively correlated with the content of grass and forbs and negatively correlated with the sum of the percentages of scrub oak and chamise.