Implications of restricted access to grazing by cattle in wet season in the Sahel

Abstract

To address the problem of restricted access to grazing by cattle in wet season in the Sahel, a grazing trial was conducted to study the effect of duration of grazing and grazing method on cattle nutrition and performance. Twenty-four intact steers weighing 259 kg (SD ¼ 62) were randomly allotted to four treatments to study the effect of the combination of grazing method (tethering and close herding) and grazing duration (6 and 9 h per day) on diet selection, faecal output, forage intake, grazing behaviour and weight changes in the wet season. Three esophageally fistulated steers were used in a cross-over design to sample diet selected by tethered and herded animals. Extrusa samples from esophageally fistulated steers and faecal output from intact steers were collected in weeks 6 and 9 of the experiment and grazing behaviour of the intact steers was observed in week 6. Tethered animals selected diets of lower organic matter digestibility (OMD) but tethering had no significant effect on crude protein. Close herded steers consistently consumed more forage than those tethered in both periods. Both grazing method and duration had significant effect on ingestion rate by the steers. Tethered steers had lower average daily gain than those herded. The results demonstrate that the common practice of tethering sedentary cattle in the wet season in the southern Sahel in West Africa reduces forage intake and consequently average daily gain. r

Trends in productivity of crops, fallow and rangelands in Southwest Niger: Impact of land use, management and variable rainfall

“…Livestock population also increased although at a lower rate after large losses following the major droughts (Turner, 2000). This increase in livestock population together with the reduction of livestock mobility linked to settlement of Fulani pastoralists and to crop area expansion, aggravated the shortage of quality grazing resources for livestock in the late dry and early wet season (Schlecht et al, 2006;Ayantunde et al, 2008). The increase in livestock population also severely increased the grazing pressure on the rangeland especially during the growing season when livestock are excluded from cropland (Turner et al, 2005).…”

Performances de croissance et efficacité alimentaire des bovins au pâturage en conditions tropicales : étude par méta-analyse

“…Le méta-dispositif ainsi constitué avec l'ensemble des données collectées, n'a pas permis d'étudier les interactions entre certains facteurs importants, comme les races et les zones climatiques. L'hétérogénéité des données et le méta-dispositif non orthogonal nous ont conduit à appliquer une démarche de méta-analyse telle qu'elle a été décrite par Sauvant et al (2008) 16,1 0,5 3,2 27,5 (1) Chacon et al (1978), Romero et Siebert (1980), Boval et al (1996), Petty et al (1998), Ramos et al (1998), Cabrera et al (2000), Sprinkle et al (2000), Ackerman et al (2001), Ayantunde et al (2001), Aranda et al (2001), Boval et al (2002), Bodine et Purvis (2003), Gomez-Vazquez et al (2003), Ayantunde et al (2008), Alonso et al (2008), Dixon et Coates (2008), Pereira et al (2009) ;…”

Tropical grasslands: A pivotal place for a more multi-functional agriculture

“…Tethering is largely practiced in low latitude places like Ghana, Ethiopia, Uganda or the Sahel (Ayantunde et al 2008;Duku et al 2010;Senbeto et al 2013) in India (Das and Hema 2008) as well as in North America (Heredia-Nava et al 2007;Patra et al 2008). It provides income to a wide range of low income breeders (including pensioners, women and youth) via an efficient conversion of biomass into animal protein at low cost on any non-arable land.…”