Impact of animal density on cattle nutrition in dry Mediterranean rangelands: a faecal near-IR spectroscopy-aided study

In the context of determining the sustainable carrying capacity of dry-Mediterranean herbaceous rangelands, we examined the effect of animal density on cattle nutrition, which is fundamental to animal performance and welfare. The effects on dietary components of low (0.56 cows/ha; L) and high (1.11...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Animal (Cambridge, England) England), 2018-02, Vol.12 (2), p.265-274
Main Authors: Landau, S. Y., Dvash, L., Yehuda, Y., Muklada, H., Peleg, G., Henkin, Z., Voet, H., Ungar, E. D.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural wastes
Agriculture
animal density
Animal health
Ashes
Beef
Beef cattle
Bovidae
Carrying capacity
Cattle
Chemical composition
Density
Diet
Digestibility
Dry matter
Dry season
Experiments
Feed additives
Grasses
Grasslands
Infrared spectroscopy
Ingestion
Legumes
Litter
Natural resources
near-IR spectroscopy
Nutrition
Nutrition research
Pasture
Plant sciences
Poultry
poultry litter
Proteins
Range management
Rangelands
Research Article
Seasons
Spectroscopy
Spectrum analysis
Sustainability
Vegetation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In the context of determining the sustainable carrying capacity of dry-Mediterranean herbaceous rangelands, we examined the effect of animal density on cattle nutrition, which is fundamental to animal performance and welfare. The effects on dietary components of low (0.56 cows/ha; L) and high (1.11 cows/ha; H) animal densities were monitored for three consecutive years in grazing beef cows. In the dry season (summer and early autumn), cows had free access to N-rich poultry litter (PL) given as a dietary supplement. In each season, near-IR spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to predict the chemical composition of herbage samples (ash, NDF, CP, in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD) and metabolizable energy (ME) content from IVDMD). Near-IR spectroscopy was applied also to faecal samples to determine the chemical composition of the diet selected by the animal, as well as the contents of ash, NDF and CP in the faeces themselves. A faecal-NIRS equation was applied to estimate the dietary proportion of PL. Seasonal categories were green, dry without PL supplementation and dry with it. We found no effects of animal density on nutrition during the green season but effects were apparent when cows consumed dry pasture. Ash content predicted by faecal NIRS was higher in the diet than in plant samples clipped from pasture, which infers that cows ingested soil. Dietary and faecal ash contents were higher (P
ISSN:1751-7311
1751-732X
DOI:10.1017/S1751731117001422