RED DEER – Feeding livestock is like feeding children.
Offer them something different that is good for them and they are apt to turn up their noses rather than give it a try.
“Animals have nutritional wisdom,” said animal scientist Fred Provenza during a session on animal behaviour and nutrition at a recent Society for Range Management seminar in Red Deer.
“They know good from bad.
“In the wild, animals that don’t do that, don’t live, so that dichotomy becomes critical.”
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Provenza, who works at Utah State University, said animals learn early on to mix different foods that complement one another to meet their nutritional needs. Their mothers, who have experienced various food sources, pass on most of that knowledge and can lead the young to food that is good for them.
Offering a variety of feed choices helps animals avoid eating too much of one food because most plants contain toxins that are harmful if enough are consumed. Healthy animals on a high plane of nutrition can handle plant toxins better.
Feed intake is cyclic and individual animals have unique preferences. It is also known that animals can get tired of the same feed, so if different flavours are offered they may try them. Others may gorge on one feed to the point of satiety, particularly a high-energy food.
Adult animals tend to select high-energy food, while young, growing animals first choose high protein feed.
“If you can train animals to mix their diet with the good stuff that is high in nutrition with the bad stuff, they ought to be better able to utilize more things you want them to use,” he said.
For example, Provenza is studying how to encourage animals to eat sagebrush, which is high in protein. By providing supplemental nutrients, they are more inclined to eat the sagebrush, which they generally reject.
Animals develop a taste for certain foods and may balk at trying better forage even if it is placed before them. They also remember different foods and if a certain plant once sickened them, they are not likely to eat it again.
In a field with 100 plant species, cattle are likely to depend on about five for most of their daily diets.
“Herbivores don’t eat that many foods,” he said.
Animals instinctively regard novel things with caution.
Provenza suggested offering new feed gradually until cattle develop a taste for it. They will immediately reject it if maturity or spoilage changes the flavour.
