Better Understanding Your Grazing Animals

Beef cattle farming Farming Dairy cattle farming

In farming, animals can be considered as living beings, for which production goals are defined. It is then necessary to describe their characteristics, with aspects specific to animal anatomy and physiology (structures and metabolic functions) and other aspects related to animal sensitivity (psychological or emotional functioning).

Animals in farming are often judged based on a limited number of characteristics. Yet, they offer interesting flexibility to build feeding systems based on pasture in each season of the year.
Animals are alive and it is good to recognize their behavioral and physiological dynamics. This allows diversifying goals, better choosing practices, and evaluating results obtained without comparing them to animals raised in off-ground systems.

The valorization of each plot is unique. It is built through adapted practices that organize the encounter between vegetation and the herd. One of the keys to success is therefore to know how to characterize animals well by diversifying observation criteria and understanding dynamics.

Better knowing your animals allows to:

Make the best use of heterogeneous and diversified vegetation.
Rely on the living nature of the herd.
Know how to define your own goals and decide in advance and daily on practices to achieve them.

What does characterizing mean?

Characterization is an evaluation of the current state of functioning of the animals. Knowing precisely the

characteristics of the animals to be fed is useful to help build the management of farming on the farm plots.
Here we propose a list of interesting characteristics to note on animals in order to succeed in their feeding

on pasture. These characteristics are grouped into three main categories:

Food demand: the ruminant uses the nutrients from its diet to meet its production and also reproduction, growth… needs. Knowing its capacity to respond to variations in nutritional quality of the diet is essential.
Feeding skills: the ruminant has the ability to transform forages to live and produce meat, milk, wool, etc. This varies on several aspects ranging from ingestion to digestion.
Grouping: a single animal does not represent much in a farming system. Within a group, the characteristics of each animal are close. However, there is diversity that must be confronted with a single farming management.

Animals’ food demand

The different periods of food demand of each type of animal determine the concerns regarding available vegetation on pasture. They vary according to the physiological needs the farmer seeks to cover, linked to the reproduction and production calendar. How animals cope with a mismatch between needs and nutritional supply must also be considered. This mismatch is managed by alternating mobilization and storage of body reserves and managing nutrient distribution for the different functions to be ensured (maintenance, reproduction, production). Food demand can be seen as a piping system onto which a set of taps representing the different functions to be covered by the animals are grafted. The taps are the means to regulate nutrient allocation flows. An expansion tank manages body reserves.

Management possibilities through practices

The structure and functioning of the organism are influenced by several factors. Some can be easily managed: the

pasture circumstances (walking, physiological stage...), the animal’s initial genetic potential and learning through experiences in farming (e.g., managing underfeeding, compensatory growth). The farmer, through technical choices, decides the herd’s food demand and directs nutrient allocation towards maintenance, reproduction, or production. He also chooses to take advantage of animals’ capacity to manage underfeeding. This improves the fluidity of the herd-vegetation encounter each season.

Animals’ feeding skills

The ruminant has anatomical aptitudes for ingestion and digestion (mouth shape, additional stomachs, large rumen, rumination). It also has metabolic aptitudes to succeed in feeding on fibrous forages (microbial fermentation, nutrient absorption, reserve storage). Finally, it has cognitive aptitudes to reinforce effective behaviors and limit feeding errors (knowledge of foods, prehension skills, time management, food preferences). These three aptitudes can be characterized through observation of the animals’ different capacities to ingest and digest. These capacities are influenced by many parameters and are thus built throughout life and in real time by the farming environment and farmer’s management. It is important to know them well to assess if animals will be able to meet their needs from forages available on the farm plots.

Management possibilities through practices

Animals’ ingestion and digestion skills are constructed. We speak of innate regarding the initial genetic potential (species/breed choice, selection…), acquired regarding the consequences of animals’ feeding education, and circumstantial regarding the effect of particular conditions at grazing time. The farmer, through choices of genetic selection, feeding education, and management, shapes the animal’s ingestion and digestion capacities relative to a given vegetation.

Characterizing environmental knowledge

Animal adaptation to the environment and ease of farming are key elements for successful practice. The grazed area is a living place for the animal, which needs to feel comfortable to stay, feed, and reach desired performance. We refer here to adaptation to environmental conditions (walking, slope, low load-bearing capacity, cold, heat, parasites…), but also to relations with the farmer to facilitate management (more or less docile animals, maternal, respecting fences…). These adaptations are largely built by practices: innate (genetic potential choice), acquired (education/learning), and circumstantial (group management on surfaces, herding, pastoral equipment…).

Grouping: diversity of individuals, but unique management

Group management of animals is necessary to facilitate farming conditions. A group is thus a set of animals gathered for a certain time around similar management. The diversity of skills and food demand is more or less strong, but always a reality since each animal is unique, somewhat like a classroom of students. Recognizing this diversity encourages accepting and anticipating the consequences of a unique management on performance achieved according to individuals.

Management possibilities through practices

While the uniqueness of individuals is always true, practices influence diversity, size, and composition of animal groups. This is done through setting the reproduction and production calendar at the farm scale, considering the realities of the farmer’s work organization and surface issues. Practices can also plan for managing over time the consequences of performance diversity within a group. The farmer, through choices, decides group management on different plots.

Example of a heifer group

The heifer group shows little diversity among animals. The pilot animal can be defined as: a heifer in a slow finishing phase

(high food needs) with good grazing abilities in wet environments due to being raised from a young age on these plots. Thus, few consequences are expected except possible heterogeneity in finishing durations.

Autres fiches Pâtur’Ajuste

Sources

SCOPELA, with the contribution of farmers. Technical sheet from the Pâtur’Ajuste network: Better knowing your animals. April 2021. Available at: https://www.paturajuste.fr/parlons-technique/ressource/ressources-generiques/mieux-connaitre-ses-animaux