Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-c8zdz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T05:35:49.336Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Influence of sward structure on daily intake and foraging behaviour by horses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2009

G. Fleurance ,
P. Duncan ,
H. Fritz ,
I. J. Gordon  and
M.-F. Grenier-Loustalot
G. Fleurance*
Affiliation:
Les Haras Nationaux, Direction des Connaissances, Station Expérimentale des Haras Nationaux, 19370 Chamberet, France Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UPR 1934, 79360 Beauvoir-sur-Niort, France
P. Duncan
Affiliation:
Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UPR 1934, 79360 Beauvoir-sur-Niort, France
H. Fritz
Affiliation:
Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UPR 1934, 79360 Beauvoir-sur-Niort, France
I. J. Gordon
Affiliation:
The Macaulay Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen, AB15 8QH, United Kingdom
M.-F. Grenier-Loustalot
Affiliation:
Service Central d’Analyses, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 69390 Vernaison, France
*
†E-mail: geraldine.fleurance@clermont.inra.fr
Get access

Abstract

The spatial heterogeneity of grasslands determines the abundance and quality of food resources for grazing animals. As plants mature, they increase in mass, which allows greater instantaneous intake rates, but the cell wall concentrations increase too, reducing diet quality. In ruminants, daily intake rates are often constrained by the time needed for the ingesta to pass through the rumen, which is influenced by the rate of digestion. It has been suggested that the digestive constraint should have much less effect on hindgut fermenters such as equids. Horses play an increasing role in the management of grasslands in Europe, but the data on the influence of the heterogeneity of the vegetation on their daily intake and foraging behaviour are sparse. We report here the results of a preliminary study concerning the effects of sward structure on nutrient assimilation and the use of patches of different heights by horses grazing successively a short immature, a tall mature and a heterogeneous pastures (with short and tall swards). Daily nutrient assimilation was higher in the heterogeneous pasture compared to the short (+35%) and the tall (+55%) ones. The digestive constraints may have limited voluntary intake by horses on the tall swards. In the heterogeneous pasture, the mean height used for feeding (6 to 7 cm) by horses was intermediate between the heights used in the short (4 to 5 cm) and tall pastures (22 to 23 cm), and the animals may thus have benefited from both short swards of high quality and tall swards offering a higher instantaneous intake rate.

Keywords

foraging, functional response, horses, nutrient acquisition, sward heterogeneity

Information

Type
Full Paper
Information
animal , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , March 2010 , pp. 480 - 485
Copyright
Copyright © The Animal Consortium 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Amiaud, B, Bouzillé, JB, Tournade, F, Bonis, A 1998. Spatial patterns of soil salinities in old embanked marshlands in Western France. Wetlands 18, 482–494.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drescher, M, Heitkönig, IMA, Van den Brink, PJ, Prins, HHT 2006. Effects of sward structure on herbivore foraging behaviour in a South African savanna: an investigation of the forage maturation hypothesis. Austral Ecology 31, 76–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dulphy, JP, Martin-Rosset, W, Dubroeucq, H, Jailler, M 1997. Evaluation of voluntary intake of forage trough-fed to light horses. Comparison with sheep. Factors of variation and prediction. Livestock Production Science 52, 97–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edouard, N, Fleurance, G, Martin-Rosset, W, Duncan, P, Dulphy, J-P, Grange, S, Baumont, R, Dubroeucq, H, Pérez-Barberia, J, Gordon, IJ 2008. Voluntary intake and digestibility in horses: effect of forage quality with emphasis on individual variability. Animal 2, 1526–1533.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Edouard, N, Fleurance, G, Duncan, P, Baumont, R, Dumont, B 2009. Does sward height affect feeding patch choices and voluntary intake in horses? Applied Animal Behaviour Science 119, 219–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleurance, G, Duncan, P, Fritz, H, Cabaret, J, Cortet, J, Gordon, IJ 2007. Selection of feeding sites by horses at pasture: Testing the anti-parasite theory. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 108, 288–301.Google Scholar
Fryxell, JM 1991. Forage quality and aggregation by large herbivores. The American Naturalist 138, 478–498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gross, JE, Shipley, LA, Hobbs, NT, Spalinger, DE, Wunder, BA 1993. Functional response of herbivores in food-concentrated patches: tests of a mechanistic model. Ecology 74, 778–791.Google Scholar
Ivlev, VS 1961. Experimental ecology of the feeding of fishes. Yale University Press, New Heaven, CT, USA.Google Scholar
Martin-Rosset, W, Doreau, M 1984. Consommation d’aliments et d’eau par le cheval. In Le Cheval. Reproduction, sélection, alimentation, exploitation (ed. R Jarrige and W Martin-Rosset), pp. 333–354. INRA, Paris, France.Google Scholar
Ménard, C, Duncan, P, Fleurance, G, Georges, J-Y, Lila, M 2002. Comparative foraging and nutrition of horses and cattle in European wetlands. Journal of Applied Ecology 39, 120–133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mésochina, P 2000. Niveau d’ingestion du cheval en croissance au pâturage: mise au point méthodologique et étude de quelques facteurs de variation. Thèse de doctorat, Institut National d’Agronomie Paris-Grignon, France.Google Scholar
Mésochina, P, Martin-Rosset, W, Peyraud, J-L, Duncan, P, Micol, D, Boulot, S 1998. Prediction of the digestibility of the diet of horses: evaluation of faecal indices. Grass and Forage Science 53, 189–196.Google Scholar
Micol, D, Martin-Rosset, W 1995. Feeding systems for horses on high forage diets in the temperate zone. In Recent developments in the Nutrition of Herbivores. Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on the Nutrition of Herbivores(ed. M Journet, E Grenet, M-H Farce, M Thériez and C Demarquilly), pp. 569–584INRA Editions, Paris, France.Google Scholar
Rogalski, M 1970. Behaviour of the horse at pasture. Kon Polski 5, 26–27.Google Scholar
Statistical Analysis Systems Institute 1999. SAS/STAT user’s guide. Cary, NC, USA.Google Scholar
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 1998. Systat 9. SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA.Google Scholar
Stewart, KEJ, Bourn, NAD, Thomas, JA 2001. An evaluation of three quick methods commonly used to assess sward height in ecology. Journal of Applied Ecology 38, 1148–1154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Soest, PJ 1982. Nutritional Ecology of the Ruminant: Ruminant metabolism, Nutritional Strategies, the Cellulolitic Fermentation and the Chemistry of Forages and Plant Fibres. O&B Books Inc, Corvallis, OR, USA.Google Scholar
Wilmshurst, JF, Fryxell, JM, Hudson, RJ 1995. Forage quality and patch choice by wapiti (Cervus elaphus). Behavioral Ecology 6, 209–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilmshurst, JF, Fryxell, JM, Colucci, PE 1999a. What constrains daily intake in Thomson’s gazelles? Ecology 80, 2338–2347.Google Scholar
Wilmshurst, JF, Fryxell, JM, Farm, BP, Sinclair, ARE, Henschel, CP 1999b. Spatial distribution of Serengeti wildebeest in relation to resources. Canadian Journal of Zoology 77, 1223–1232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar