Ranchers have traditionally used water and salt to coax cattle from one place to another. Now, a U.S. Department of Agriculture rangeland scientist has found that while water is an effective tool for moving cattle, salt isn’t as helpful as was once thought.
David C. Ganskopp tracked the movement of cattle on large western rangelands by fitting them with global positioning system collars to determine their precise locations. At the USDA’s Range and Meadow Forage Management Research Unit in Burns, Oregon, Ganskopp observed that cattle were attracted to water nine times more often than they were to salt.
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They were willing to travel farther to get to water and whenever water and salt were separated, they altered their habits to remain close to water. Since cattle require water on nearly a daily basis, they will alter their distribution patterns to remain near dependable water sources.
According to Ganskopp, cows have the ability to learn and remember, thus knowing how to find water sources that they’ve previously visited. If producers selectively open and close gates to watering points on the range or move portable water tanks to unused points in the pasture, they can get animals to occupy these undergrazed areas.
While salt will likely not attract cattle for great distances, it is an excellent carrier for supplementing their diets with the many minerals needed to sustain animal gains and reproduction. For those reasons, salt should still be readily accessible to cattle.
Ganskopp is continuing analyses of his cattle data with geographic information system software to evaluate the effects on livestock distribution of topography, forage quantity and forage quality differences.
