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Rotational grazing approaches reduces external and internal parasite loads in cattle
We tested whether holistic planned grazing (HPG) and four-camp grazing (FCG) rotational grazing approaches influence beef cattle parasites counts compared with continuous, season-long (SLG) grazing. We expected that parasite counts would increase linearly with increasing camp occupancy by cattle from 1 d (70-camp, HPG) to 21–28 d (four-camp, FCG) to 180 d (one-camp per season, SLG). Tick and faecal egg counts were observed across seasons on 30 steers raised on a private farm in Cedarville, South Africa. Tick species identified were Rhipicephalus evertsi evertsi, Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) decoloratus, Hyalomma spp. and Amblyomma hebreaum with respective prevalences of 32%, 29%, 20% and 19%. Unidentified roundworms had the highest faecal worm egg counts (81.2%) followed by Coccidia (16.4%), Nematodirus (1.2%) and strongyles (1.2%). Overall, prevalence and mean counts for ticks and faecal worm eggs were highest in the hot wet season, with the SLG having greater (P ≤ 0.05) values than either of the rotational approaches. However, increasing camp number and animal densities above four camps did not reduce (P > 0.05) parasite loads compared with HPG. Current results suggest that rotational grazing is a potential strategy to reduce livestock losses caused by high tick and worm loads in cattle, especially in the hot wet season.
Frequent grazing can establish high forage value grazing lawns supporting high grazer
densities, but can also produce overgrazed grass communities with unpalatable or
low grass basal cover, supporting few grazers. Attempts ...
Pretorius, Zander(University of Pretoria, 2022-12-15)
Title: Concentrate supplementation to Jersey cows grazing plantain and ryegrass
When compared to TMR-based dairy production systems, pasture-based dairy production
systems produce milk at a lower cost per litre. Nutrients ...
Geldenhuys, Conrad; Van der Merwe, Helga; Van Rooyen, M.W. (Margaretha W.), 1950-(Elsevier, 2023-12)
Rangelands of arid ecosystems are driven by internal and external environmental controls. Grazing pressure is an important anthropogenic driver, but stochastic environmental events such as rainfall variability and prolonged ...