Can social interactions affect food searching efficiency of cattle?

Experienced members of a herd of cattle, referred to as social models in this paper, may play an important part in the searching pattern of naive animals. Naive animals may distribute themselves more evenly because their expectations of preferred areas are not as developed as the expectations of experienced animals. We tested three treatments to investigate if social models tend to transmit information about places of grazing to naive ones or if food distribution tends to be more uniform when animals have less experience with the area. A fenced paddock with 192 trays spaced at about 5 m apart was used to conduct this experiment. Treatment one was the clumped distribution treatment (CDT). Food trays were placed as sets of four. Treatment two was the scattered distribution treatment (SDT). Food trays were placed evenly covering different areas of the paddock. In these two treatments, steers were allowed to find 32 trays with feed in the presence of a social model. Treatment three is a control (CT). Steers were allowed to find 32 trays containing feed with no social model present. The experiment lasted seven days and starting on day four, CDT had a higher FL/NL (ratio of found locations to new locations) than CT (P<0.05). This suggests that naive animals tend to be more efficient in finding preferred food locations in the presence of an experienced model. CDT had a higher FLNL than SDT on days three, six and seven of the experiment (P<0.05). This suggests that the initial distribution of food affected the searching efficiency of naive animals. Moreover, within three days steers in all three treatments did better than expected by chance in locating food. Key words: Grazing, searching, distribution, spatial memor

Variations in Nutritive Values of Two Different Desert Forage Plants Growing in the United Arab Emirate Environment

Forage plants in desert environments have to withstand both shortages in resources and over grazing during most years. This variation in resource availability is associated with variation in the nutritive values of the plant species. Moreover, these differences are not only seasonal but also vary between plant parts. Variations in nutritive values in key species, therefore, need to be better understood in order to sustainably feed livestock (Abdurazak et al., 2000), because effective management requires adequate knowledge of the interaction between the animal, the pasture and the environment (Kassilly, 2002). Forage toxicity could, however, cause irreparable damage to production. In the Gulf region, and especially in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Acacia tortilis and Prosopis cineraria are considered important sources of feed for livestock. The aims of the present study were (1) to improve our understanding of variations in the nutritive values of Acacia tortilis and Prosopis cineraria grown in the UAE and (2) to quantify differences between parts of the two species

Cattle Do Remember Locations of Preferred Food over Extended Periods

The duration of spatial memory in cattle is potentially important for grazing management. The ability of livestock to remember the location of food patches may lead to uneven range use. In this experiment, how long cattle are able to remember food locations was determined. Six steers were used to conduct this study in a pasture with an 8 row by 8 column grid of 64 plastic containers 5 meters apart. Four randomly chosen containers were loaded with feed pellets. All steers were trained to find the loaded locations until a minimum of empty containers were visited. After this initial training, each steer was tested at 5, 10, 20 and 48 days post-training. Total number of visits (TV), number of containers visited (NC), the ratio of loaded containers (LC) to NC were recorded. Once the steers learned the locations of loaded containers NC did not increase with time since last training up to 48 days (p>0.05). Logarithmic transformation of NC (LNC) was 0.70 and 0.80 for the control and 48 day treatments, respectively. Steers were equally efficient in locating containers with feed. The steers also showed that their ability in locating food was much better than expected by chance (Z>1.62). Findings of the present study do not suggest using spatial memory decay as a tool to promote better grazing distribution. Because steers remembered food locations accurately for at least 48 days

Greywater pollutant removal dynamics in the vegetative biofiltration systems

This study explored the greywater pollutant removal effectiveness of the vegetative biofiltration system. Thirty six biofiltration columns were constructed where twelve different species in triplet were planted. The columns were irrigated by synthetic greywater and the removal efficiency of heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cr, Zn, Cu) were monitored. The retention of heavy metals in the water, plants (leaves, stem and roots) and soil were investigated. The biofiltration systems performed well in reducing Zn and Cu. Overall the low biomass species performed well, however, the Pennisetum seateceum plant performed outstandingly in removing heavy metals

Effects of ruminant digestion on germination of Lehmann love-grass seed

Lehmann lovegrass (Eragrostis lehmanniana Nees) seed (germination 96%, dormant 0%) was used in 4 experiments to study the potential of sheep as a dispersal agent. Five, 4-year-old, ruminally cannulated wethers were used to examine effects of ruminant digestion on seed recovery and germination. All wethers were ruminally evacuated, and rumens were cleansed and reinoculated with strained ruminal fluid. After a 21-day adaptation to pelleted alfalfa, 4 experiments were conducted. Experiment 1 was designed to test viability of Lehmann lovegrass seeds exposed to ruminal and postruminal digestion. Lehmann lovegrass seed (10 g) was dosed intra-ruminally via ruminal fistula, and total fecal collections made. Of the viable seed ruminally dosed, 37% germinated within 21 days after recovery. Also, 98 to 100% of the seed that germinated was recovered within 72 hours of dosing. Experiment 2 was designed to test the influence of ruminal microbial digestion on seed degradation and viability, using in sacco nylon bag techniques. In sacco dry matter disappearance increased linearly from 5.5% at 3 hours of incubation to 16% at 120 hours. Germination of seed was not greatly affected until after 72 hours of ruminal incubation. Experiment 3 was designed to examine the effect of mastication on viability of Lehmann lovegrass seeds. Seeds were mixed with seed-free Lehmann lovegrass straw in a proportion of 1 to 10 (seed to straw) and 10 g fed to each wether. Boli were recovered manually via ruminal fistula. Thirty five percent of the seed fed entered the rumen without damage due to mastication. Experiment 4 compared in vitro techniques and in sacco techniques used to estimate the effect of digestion on seed viability. In vitro incubation techniques yielded similar results as in sacco techniques. We conclude that ruminants are potential disseminating agents of Lehmann lovegrass seed.The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] for further information.Migrated from OJS platform August 202