The Importance of Groves for Cattle in Semi-Open Pastures

Almut Popp and Klaus-Manfred Scheibe
Additional contact information
Almut Popp: Almut Popp, Am Schäferbruch 13, Wittenburg D-19243, Germany
Klaus-Manfred Scheibe: Klaus-Manfred Scheibe, Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, PF 601103, Berlin D-10252, Germany

Agriculture, 2013, vol. 3, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Groves are of ecological importance, but can reduce the productivity of pastures. They may be used by cattle for nutrition as well as for comfort and shelter. To describe the importance and to estimate the influence of cattle on groves, the behavior of cattle around trees and shrubs was observed on six semi-open pastures in the mountain range of Thuringia and the Southern Black Forest (Germany). The groves were divided into formations, species and structures. The cattle used the groves more for browsing than rubbing. Significantly preferred species calculated by Chesson-Index were dogwood ( Cornus sanguinea ), black elder ( Sambucus nigra ), fly honeysuckle ( Lonicera xylosteum ), plum ( Prunus domestica ), osier ( Salix viminalis ), white beam ( Sorbus chamaemespilus ), and guelder rose ( Viburnum opulus ). The browsing preference is discussed in relation to nutritional importance and as self-medication. Cattle suppressed some species according to the utilization frequency, but for other species, there was no correlation. The animals preferred the tree hedges in comparison to the other formations. Hedges were utilized as shelter in extreme weather. In addition, under high browsing pressure, hedges were sustained and regenerated. Hedges on pastures turned out to be important for cattle under several aspects and accordingly should be preserved.

Keywords: browsing; bushes; comfort behavior; self-medication; preference; sheltering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/3/1/147/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/3/1/147/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:3:y:2013:i:1:p:147-156:d:24252

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().