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The Forage Consumption of Grazing Steers

University of Illinois

Abstract

A thorough survey of pasture research reveals a serious lack of accurate information on the consumption and utilization of pasture forage by grazing animals. Until now one of the most basic problems has remained almost entirely unsolved. This problem may be denned as the influence of plant species, strain, and stage of maturity, together with weather conditions, on the forage consumption of grazing animals of different species, types, breeds, strains, ages, and degrees of fleshing. The most probable reason for the lack of a solution to this problem is the fact that until now no satisfactory procedure has been devised by which the normal forage consumption of grazing animals could be determined accurately. Previous methods have been shown to have large errors. The error in one case was found (1) to be over fifty per cent of the forage intake.

The writer has perfected a procedure for determining the dry matter consumption of grazing steers which has been used in nineteen grazing trials. The results of these trials have been analyzed statistically and found to have a probable error in the average forage consumption of only two and one-half per cent.

¹ The author takes this opportunity to express his appreciation to Prof H. P. Busk and the Animal Husbandry Department, also to Dr. W. L. Burlison and the Agronomy Department, University of Illinois, for their suggestions and the use of their facilities.