Abstract

Author:
Avishek Poudel

Doi: 10.26480/mahj.02.2024.46.49

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

Sheep and goats are frequently co-grazed all over the world and have done so for a long time. It’s possible that its advantages are underappreciated, and strategies for maximizing them haven’t been well-researched. The advantages of grazing sheep and goats are primarily due to their varying tastes in plant species and parts, their capacity or willingness to eat highly unpopular forages, which would have a greater negative impact on other species, and their physical accessibility to vegetation types. Therefore, as plant diversity grows and foraging overlap decreases at the same time, the carrying capacity of grasslands, or total stocking rate, surpasses that of monoecious species. When it comes to co-grazing, appropriate stocking rates are arguably the most important management decision. With mono-species grazing, the botanical composition and available forage mass, along with variables influencing nutrient requirements like body weight and production state, preference for or willingness to consume forages present, and intended grazing duration, are significant determinants of the number of sheep and goats. Predicting mono-species stocking rates will be made easier by prior knowledge of grazing practices and animal circumstances. When co-grazing, estimates of dietary overlap should be based on the most precise technique that is currently available, which is frequently experienced or visual observation at different times of the day and in different seasons. It makes a false assumption that all animal species have an identical capacity to ingest forages, which is not necessarily the case. Moreover, stocking rate interactions that occur when the two species graze together vs separately are not considered. However, the method’s simplicity may make it useful in field settings, and it serves as an example of the significance of browse plant species in many grazing systems and the reasons management measures are often used to preserve or enhance their prevalence and vegetation variety.