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Quality of Diets Selected by Grazing Animals and its Relation to Quality of Available Forage and Species Composition of Pastures¹

University of Tennessee, Knoxville 37916^,3

Abstract

Esophageal-fistulated animals were used to study selectivity exhibited while grazing either fescue-lespedeza or orchardgrass-clover pastures. Chemical components of forage collected with fistulated animals were adjusted for total effects of fistula and compared to those components of forage available for grazing. Animals selected forage that contained more crude protein and less acid-detergent fiber and soluble carbohydrate than was observed in the available forage samples. Also, the selected forage was more digestible. Available forage constituents and digestibility, plant height and legume percent were used in multiple-regression equations for predicting the chemical constituents and digestibility of the selected diet. The coefficients of determination for the final equation with fescue-lespedeza pastures were 0.71, 0.55, 0.67 and 0.88 for CP, ADF, NFE+EE and DDM, respectively, and 0.71, 0.60, 0.59, 0.95 for the same variables in orchardgrass-clover pastures. All were significant (P<.01), but month and year accounted for a considerable amount of the variation.

¹ Published with the permission of the Dean of the University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station.

² The authors are grateful to Dr. G. M. Merriman for performing the fistulation operations and to Dr. H. C. Wang for technical assistance.

³ Animal Science Department.

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