Sheep Grazing Behavior in Temperate Deciduous Silvopastures.

Silvopasture is an agroforestry practice incorporating trees into pasture systems.  While the additon of trees may provide opportunities to increase total output per unit of land, silvopasture systems have been little explored in terms of direct effects on animals.  This study compared behavior of hair sheep grazing open (control) pastures vs. honeylocust and black walnut silvopastures.  Lambs (24 kg) were assigned to treatment and placed on tall fescue and mixed cool-season forages in mid-June.  Visual observations of sheep grazing behavior were recorded at 6-min intervals from about dawn to dusk grazing during a day in July and a day in August.  Pastures were rotationally stocked, and sheep were moved to fresh pasture prior to each monitoring event.  Animal behavior varied by measurement period and clear differences in grazing activities were not discernable.  Animals in silvopastures spent more time ruminating, drinking, and consuming salt. Animals managed on open pastures spent more time lying down during July but more time standing in August. Animals in silvopastures spent more time in shade and appeared more comfortable based on unrecorded amounts of panting.  Some reports on silvopastures suggest animal performance can be maintained even in cases where forage availability declines due to competition with trees.  Such obervations may be driven by greater animal comfort as was evident in this study.