Ability of dairy goats to graze on temporary multispecies grasslands

Abstract

Grazing may increase the sustainability of dairy goat systems, but the ability of high-producing dairy goats to adapt to several grazing management practices under temperate grasslands is not well known. This paper reviews recent research studies conducted at INRAE in Bretagne and Nouvelle-Aquitaine regions between 2015 and 2018 on factors affecting pasture intake, milk production and grazing behaviour of strip-grazing Alpine goats, on temperate temporary pastures of good quality, with low supplementation level (600 g/d of concentrate, with or without an additional 400 g/d of dehydrated forage). After validating the methods used to evaluate the individual daily pasture intake and grazing time, the grazing studies showed that i) goats without grazing experience learn in a few days how to graze actively; ii) goats adapt well to a restriction of daily access time to pasture down to 6-7 h/d, by increasing mainly the proportion of time spent grazing at pasture, without any effect on milk production; iii) a pasture allowance of 2.5 kg DM/goat/d above 4 cm from ground level is required to avoid reductions of intake and milk production; iv) no access to drinking water during 8 h/d of grazing has no impact on feeding behaviour nor on milk production, even during hot days, and v) primiparous goats, compared to multiparous ones, eat less and more slowly on an individual basis, but such a difference disappears when intake is expressed relative to their body weight. It is concluded that high yielding goats are able to adapt and provide high intake and milk production levels when grazing multispecies temporary pastures.