Foraging behaviour of sheep and goats grazing on silvopastoral systems in Northern Greece
2009
Yiakoulaki, M.D. | Zarovali, M.P. | Papanastasis, V.P.
Silvopastoral systems in Greece are mainly utilized by domestic animals but they also provide many other goods and services. Direct observations were carried out on a mixed flock of sheep and goats grazing on deciduous rangelands dominated by oak and beech trees in northern Greece. Diet samples were collected by hand plucking and were categorized into woody, grass, forb species and leaf litter. Grazing activities (feeding, moving, lying, standing and ruminating) were also recorded. Mean forage cover (per cent) of grass, forbs, woody species and leaf litter was 51.5, 15.3, 5.5 and 23.2 respectively. Bare ground and rock-gravel represented 4 per cent and 0.6 per cent of the cover respectively. Grasses and forbs were the main components of sheep diet (96.4 per cent), while browse made up only 3.6 per cent of their diet. On the contrary, browse was the most important forage class for goats (57.9 per cent), followed by grasses and forbs (40 per cent) and leaf litter (2.1 per cent). Sheep behaved as typical grazers, exclusively selecting herbaceous species, while goats exhibited considerable flexibility selecting forage from all forage categories. Feeding was the main activity of both animal species, followed by moving, standing and ruminating
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