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Grazing behaviour is a type of feeding strategy within the ecology of a species. Specific grazing strategies include graminivory (eating grasses); coprophagy (producing part-digested pellets which are reingested); pseudoruminant (having a multi-chambered stomach but not chewing the cud); and grazing on plants other than grass, such as on marine ...
Dairy cattle grazing in Germany. In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to free range (roam around) and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and other forages into meat, milk, wool and other animal products, often on land that is unsuitable for arable farming.
The vegetation of tended pasture, forage, consists mainly of grasses, with an interspersion of legumes and other forbs (non-grass herbaceous plants). Pasture is typically grazed throughout the summer, in contrast to meadow which is ungrazed or used for grazing only after being mown to make hay for animal fodder. [2]
Grasses are unusual in that the meristem is near the bottom of the plant; hence, grasses can quickly recover from cropping at the top. [35] The evolution of large grazing animals in the Cenozoic contributed to the spread of grasses. Without large grazers, fire-cleared areas are quickly colonized by grasses, and with enough rain, tree seedlings.
Overgrazing is also seen as a cause of the spread of invasive species of non-native plants and of weeds. Degrading land, emissions from animal agriculture and reducing the biomass in a ecosystem contribute directly to climate change [2] between grazing events.
The shortgrass prairie is an ecosystem located in the Great Plains of North America.The two most dominant grasses in the shortgrass prairie are blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis) and buffalograss (Bouteloua dactyloides), the two less dominant grasses in the prairie are greasegrass (Tridens flavus) and sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula).
Target plant palatability depends on the grazing animals inherited and developed plant preferences (i.e. the shape of sheep and goat's mouths make them well suited for eating broad leaf weeds). Goats are also well designed for eating shrubs. [34] [35] Second, target plants often exist in a plant community with many desirable plants. The ...
The intent is to allow the pasture plants and soil time to recover. [2] Healing native rangeland may require a combination of burning and rotational grazing. [3] [4] [5] Rotational grazing can be used with ruminants such as cattle, sheep or goats; non-ruminants such as pigs can also be used. The herds graze one portion of pasture, or a paddock ...