Welcome to Acta Prataculturae Sinica ! Today is Share:

Acta Prataculturae Sinica ›› 2013, Vol. 22 ›› Issue (4): 275-282.DOI: 10.11686/cyxb20130433

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of grazing intensities on foraging behaviors of goats on a cultivated pasture of southern China

WAN Li-qiang, CHEN Wei-wei, LI Xiang-lin, HE Feng, WAN Jiang-chun,
WU Wei-da, ZHAO Yun   

  1. Institute of Animal Sciences, CAAS, Beijing 100193, China
  • Online:2013-08-20 Published:2013-08-20

Abstract: There are fairly rich forage resources and species and quantity of grazing livestock with good climatic conditions in southern China. To promote the utilization of local pasture resources and the balance between forage and livestock, changes of foraging behaviors of goats under different grazing intensities were studied by field observation group methods on a cultivated pasture of southwestern China. Goats under the light and heavy-grazing regimes spent more time in eating than in other activities (P<0.01). Goats grazed in the pastures spent an average of 29.0%, 29.2%, 25.4% and 16.4% of their total eating time grazing four types of plants: ryegrass, cocksfoot, white clover and forbs respectively. Goats allocated much more of their eating time to the first three species than to the forbs (P<0.01) but there was no significant difference (P>0.05) in the grazing time of the three species. Biting rates of goats gradually decreased with an increase of grazing intensity and as the season progressed, but the differences were not significant (P>0.05). There was a negative relationship between bite rate and bite weight of goats. The stocking rates showed the potential to serve as a management tool for manipulating the pasture composition, enhancing goats’ effective intakes and thus improving the financial outputs of goat grazing systems and the incomes of local farmers.

CLC Number: