Valiollah Raufirad; Ataollah Ebrahimi; Hossein Arzani; Zahra Shojaei Asadeiye
Abstract
Palatability includes plants physical and chemical property that encourages an animal selecta plant for grazing. This study is an attempt for intruducing an indicator for determining thepalatability of rangeland plants. To do this, the relationship between palatability and foragequality of rangeland ...
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Palatability includes plants physical and chemical property that encourages an animal selecta plant for grazing. This study is an attempt for intruducing an indicator for determining thepalatability of rangeland plants. To do this, the relationship between palatability and foragequality of rangeland plants in Karsanak rangelands of the Chaharmahal-va-Bakhtiari provincewas studied. First, plant composition based on plant canopy cover and production wasdetermined using of the systematic random sampling method (in each plant type there are2 transects of 200 m and 15 plots along each transect). Also, the percentage of present eachplant in the livestock diet (sheep and goat) was determined using the filming method. Then,the selection index of each plant species by sheep and goat was determined. In the next stage,the forage quality of some plant species was determined by determining the percentage ofCP, ADF, DMD and ME. Finally, the relationship between plant quality indices (independentvariables) and the selection index of plant species by sheep and goats (dependent variable)was determined using the SPSS software (Ver.15). Results showed that there is a significantrelationship between the selection index of each species (both percentage canopy cover andproduction) and ADF, DMD, and ME by the sheep (P ≤0.05). However, such a significantrelationship was not found for CP. And, there is not a significant relationship between theselection index of each species (both percentage canopy cover and production) and ADF,DMD, ME and CP by the goat (P ≤0.05). Considering the results, the quality of forage can be an indicator in determining their palatability.
