Academic literature on the topic 'Free-range grazing'

Abstract Open grazing in Nigeria has been an age-long practice associated with the people of the Sahel. Evidence abounds of the peaceful co-existence between cattle herders and their host communities in nearly all parts of the country; what obtains today is far from peaceful. There have been incessant reports of violence ranging from the destruction of farmlands to the deaths of farmers and herdsmen through deliberate, unprovoked, violent attacks and reprisal attacks. Government efforts at resolving these issues have brought about suggestions to have grazing reserves or ranching, which have been resisted by some states. There have been calls by some state governments for the ban of open grazing due to the problems associated with it while some states have enacted laws banning open grazing. Meanwhile, there is a paucity of information on the legality of open grazing or otherwise, since there is yet to be a federal law in support of or condemnation, hence this investigation. This paper adopts legal and agropastoral methodologies to review these issues as they affect animal-human welfare. It further investigates how grazing is done in other climes to suggest possible solutions that will be mutually beneficial to farmers and herders. It found that in other climes, the methods of grazing were permitted to depend on the peculiarity of each state, particularly the availability of land. Findings further revealed the possible consequences of the free-range system if left unchecked, one of which could gradually affect the country’s adequate food supply. Farmlands are gradually abandoned for fear of possible attacks. Some states particularly known for farming are now plagued with hunger and poverty among farmers in rural areas. The consequence of unregulated open grazing could impair the possibility of attaining sustainable development goals of zero hunger and eradication of poverty. It recommends that the government urgently finds a lasting solution to open grazing that will be welcomed and acceptable to all states, bearing in mind their different peculiarities. Failure to attain these amounts to a gross violation of the rights of the various stakeholders.

Managing the mineral nutrition of free-range grazing livestock can be challenging. On farms where grazing animals are infrequently yarded, there are limited opportunities to administer trace element supplements via feeds and concentrates. In New Zealand, where the majority of sheep, cattle, and deer graze pasture year round, inadequate intake of cobalt, copper, iodine and selenium is prevalent. Scientists and farmers have developed efficient strategies to monitor and treat these dietary deficiencies. Supplementation methods suited to grazing livestock include long-acting injections, slow-release intraruminal boluses, trace element-amended fertilisers, and reticulated water supplies on dairy farms.

ABSTRACT: Open grazing or free-range grazing is one of the methods employed by the Nigeria nomadic cattle herders to provide pasture for their cattle. This method of providing pasture for cattle comes with so many challenges among which are cow swapping, ownership disputes, rustling and cow intrusion to farmland. Some existing methods of guiding against these challenges are expensive, injurious, and unreliable to apply. The objective of this paper is to develop an enhanced and affordable software package for cow recognition and identification using a graphical user interface and information encoding method. Data analysis module with software application for the analysis of the generated code is proposed; the software application installed on a computer or smart-phone may be standalone or otherwise. Data about individual cow is digitally collected, coded and stored using necessary resources, tools, and methods. Moreover, by tagging individual cow with the generated code, and matching the code with the ones in the database using code reader, individual cow can be recognized and identified. 

Abstract In the United States, outdoor pig production is steadily increasing thanks to the niche market strategy for small farmers, consumer antipathy to factory farm products, and the trend of eco-friendly and animal welfare, and research on this is continuing. One of the advantages of outdoor pig production is that farms can be run with small capital, and one of the disadvantages is that cover crops can be devastated due to the burrowing nature of pigs, resulting in underground water being overnourished if management is neglected. Recent scientific advances have made it possible to take images from unmanned aerial vehicles. Utilizing this technology to ascertain the situation of grazing land in outdoor grazing pig production will greatly help farmers maintain pastures at the recommended rate without leaving pastures until they are irreparable. The objective of this study was to quantitatively estimate the level of grazing area damage in outdoor free-range pig production using an UAV with an RGB image sensor. Ten corn field images were captured by an UAV over a period of approximately two weeks, during which gestating sows were allowed to graze freely on the corn field measuring 100×50 m2. The images were corrected to a bird's-eye view, and then divided into 32 segments and sequentially inputted into the YOLOv4 detector to detect the corn images according to their condition. The 43 raw training images selected randomly out of 320 segmented images, each with different degrees of corn devastation, were flipped to create 86 images, and then these images were further augmented by rotating them in 5-degree increments to create a total of 6,192 images. The increased 6,192 images are further augmented by applying three random color transformations to each image, resulting in a total of 24,768 datasets. The system accumulates the number and area of the detected labels to calculate the corn occupancy rate. The occupancy rate of corn in the field was estimated efficiently using YOLO. As of the first day of observation (day 2), it was evident that almost all the corn had disappeared by the ninth day. When grazing 20 sows in a 50×100 m2 cornfield (250 m2/sow), it appears that the animals should be rotated to other grazing areas to protect the cover crop after at least five days. In agricultural technology, most of the research using machine and deep learning is related to the detection of fruits and pests, and research on other application fields is needed. In addition, large-scale image data collected by experts in the field are required as training data to apply deep learning. If data required for deep learning is insufficient, a large number of data augmentation is required.

The composition of gut microbiota is closely related to health and nutrition of livestock. Research on the interaction between gut microbiota in livestock and grazing management strategies is unfortunately sparse. By studying the compositions of gut microbiota in sheep and goats in a single, mixed grazing population under the control of herdsman, as well as those of free-range camels in the same area of Qaidam Basin, we found that the composition of gut microbiota between sheep and goats showed no significant difference. However, there were significant differences between mixed group and camels at α- and β-diversities. We speculate that grazing management can shape gut microbial diversity indirectly. Mixed grazing under the control of herdsman lead to similarities in the diversity of gut microbiota among different species and limit their diversities of gut microbiota, which is not conducive to healthy growth of the host. On the contrary, free-range grazing is better for the diversity of gut microbiota. In order to sustainably manage populations of livestock, gut microbiota analysis may prove to be an important indicator for evaluating the merits of different grazing management strategies. Our results lay a foundation to improve the health of livestock and grazing management.

Open grazing or free-range grazing is one of the methods employed by the Nigeria nomadic cattle herders to provide pasture for their cattle. This method of providing pasture for cattle comes with so many challenges among which are cow swapping, ownership disputes, rustling and cow intrusion to farmland. Some existing methods of guiding against these challenges are expensive, injurious, and unreliable to apply. The objective of this paper is to develop an enhanced and affordable software package for cow recognition and identification using a graphical user interface and information encoding method. Data analysis module with software application for the analysis of the generated code is proposed; the software application installed on a computer or smart-phone may be standalone or otherwise. Data about individual cow is digitally collected, coded and stored using necessary resources, tools, and methods. Moreover, by tagging individual cow with the generated code, and matching the code with the ones in the database using code reader, individual cow can be recognized and identified.Keywords: Open grazing; Free-range grazing; Nomadic herder; Cow identification; Pasture.

In Botswana, cattle rearing can either be in farms or in communal grazing areas. In communal grazing areas, carrying capacities are never adhered to, hence degradation sometimes occurs. This negatively impact on the livestock industry since cattle are mainly free ranging. This therefore calls for periodic checks of grass species to determine whether grazing areas still have potentials to sustain livestock production. A study was done to take stock of grass species and bush encroachment status around the biggest village of Botswana, known as Molepolole. The survey looked at species composition, distribution and production. The survey was done by using line transects, quadrats and plots in the northern and western direction of the village. In each quadrat, grass species were identified, counted by species, height measured and biomass determined by clipping. In plots, woody plants were counted for all species. The survey revealed that despite heavy grazing and periodic droughts the grazing area still has some grass species of good grazing value and the area is being threatened to being encroached by woody species. Thus there is still a potential for use of the area for grazing but at lower stocking rate. However, it was noted that the area needs some restoration by controlling bush encroachment and reintroduction of good grass species.

<p class="awabstrak2">The free-range system is a currentmodel of chicken production according to the concept of Animal Welfare. This article aims to discuss how the free-range system was implemented and its effect on health, performance and quality product as well as free-range development strategies as an alternative to chicken production systems. The free-range system must have access to outdoor to express their natural behavior. Based on regulation, the density of chickens in outdoor is a maximum of 10,000 birds/ha. Chickens reared using the free-range system show better welfare indicators, as evidenced by the Heterophil/Lymphocyte (H/L) value and the frequency of their natural behavior. Chicken eggs from the free-range system contain higher levels of protein and carotenoid. It also contains omega-3 & 6, DHA, vitamins A and E and have lower cholesterol level. Chicken meat from the free-range system contains higher protein and lower fat levels. However, the performance of chicken production using free-range system was still not consistent and was greatly influenced by the type of forage in the pasture. The introduction of grazing land with superior forage such as <em>Indigofera zollingeriana</em> and choosing kampung or local type of chickens may become development strategies of chicken production in the free range system.</p>

Genetic parameters were estimated using 8086 weaning weight records of Mashona cattle from commercial herds in Zimbabwe, through Derivative-free Restricted Maximum Likelihood (DFREML) procedure fitting an individual animal model. All known additive relationships among animals were incorporated and all sires were assumed to have been bred by unknown parents. A simulation study was carried out to estimate the amount of bias in the estimated genetic parameters caused by the failure to account for the true relationships among the breeding animals.<br>Genetic differences between the weaning weights of Mashona cattle in commercial herds and in small holder herds were estimated using performance records of progeny from 2 reference bulls, 3 bulls from commercial herds, 14 bulls from Makoholi Research Station and 20 bulls from small holder farms. The findings from this study were used as a basis for simulating different strategies of improving the weaning weights of Mashona cattle through the creation of nucleus herds. Estimates ($ pm$s.e) of direct heritability (h$ sb{ rm A} sp2$), maternal heritability (h$ sb{ rm M} sp2$) and the correlation between direct and maternal genetic effects (r$ sb{ rm AM}$) were 0.243 $ pm$ 0.046, 0.392 $ pm$ 0.031 and $-$0.282 $ pm$ 0.081, respectively. When a permanent environmental effect of the dam (c$ sp2$) was fitted, the estimates of h$ sb{ rm A} sp2$, h$ sb{ rm M} sp2$, r$ sb{ rm AM}$ and c$ sp2$ were 0.281 $ pm$ 0.026, 0.113 $ pm$ 0.022, $-$0.269 $ pm$ 0.106 and 0.228 $ pm$ 0.023, respectively. No significant trends were observed in direct breeding values but there was a decline in maternal breeding values. The simulation study indicated that the bias in h$ sb{ rm A} sp2$ and h$ sb{ rm M} sp2$ resulting from the lack of sire pedigrees was trivial if the correlation between direct and maternal genetic effects was high and a large proportion of dams had known pedigrees.<br>The progeny test showed that both the mean breeding values of the reference sires and the bulls from commercial farms were significantly higher than the mean breeding values of small holder bulls for birth weight (by 1.6 and 1.7 kg, respectively) and weaning weight (by 10.4 and 11.0 kg, respectively). The strategies that selected breeding animals on their maternal genetic values resulted in the highest responses for weaning weight.<br>It was concluded that maternal genetic values of Mashona cattle should be improved to allow this breed to compete favourably as a maternal breed in commercial agriculture.

Abstract Since its introduction into the Southern Highlands of Tanzania by researchers 25 years ago, Conservation Agriculture (CA) has been well received, researched and the concept proven to be increasing productivity and incomes, enhancing resilience of livelihoods and contributing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. CA research, as defined by the three interlined principles, was introduced into the Southern Highlands by the Tanzania Agricultural Research Institute (TARI) Uyole, formerly Agricultural Research Institute (ARI) Uyole around 1995. Research results showed a labour saving of up to 70% in CA compared to conventional tillage, yield increases of 26%-100% and 360% for maize and sunflower, respectively, partly attributed to higher moisture content (18%-24%) in CA systems. CA was also found to be much more effective in mitigating dry spells and increasing productivity in maize production in areas where average annual rainfall is less than 770 mm. Economic analysis of maize production showed that profits in CA were three times more than in conventional tillage production at US$526.9 ha^-1 and US$ 176.6 ha^-1, respectively. Profits were twice as much for beans under CA at US$917.4 ha^-1 compared to US$376.3 ha^-1 for conventional practice. Studies confirm that 5% of farmers in the Southern Highlands have adopted CA. Increased uptake requires addressing challenges including resistance to change in mindset, inaccessibility of appropriate mechanization and cover crop seeds, traditions of free-range communal grazing of livestock (which makes it difficult for farmers to retain crop residue in their farms) and shortage of investment capital. A holistic value chain approach is recommended in CA interventions, bringing together various stakeholders including scientists, trainers, extension workers, administrators, policy makers, agro-inputs and machinery dealers, machinery service providers, agro-processors and financial institutions. The innovations adaptation set-up brings service providers closer to farmers for co-innovation. Long-term CA programmes are recommended, with farmers being taken through the complete learning cycle in testing CA technologies under their own farm environments. This should be complemented by entrepreneurial CA machinery hire services provision to increase the availability of farm power to smallholders unlikely to have the capital or skills to buy and manage their own machinery. The proof of application of the CA concept in the Southern Highlands has set the stage for further scaling the adoption of CA through support from national policies and programmes.

“Home on the Range” evokes a western landscape “where the deer and the antelope play.” But even at the song’s debut in the 1870s, deer and antelope were declining in numbers and cattle grazing was degrading rangelands across the American west. In their natural state, arid North American lands are robust and productive, but they recover exceedingly slowly from heavy grazing. By 1860, more than 3.5 million domesticated grazing animals were trampling arid western soils, causing severe erosion and lowering both water quality and water supplies in a water-poor region. The early start and persistence of grazing over such a long period of time invaded every nook and cranny of the public lands, making livestock grazing the most pervasively damaging human land use across all western ecosystems. Today, grazing affects approximately 260 million acres of publicly owned forest and rangelands, mostly in the 11 western states—about equivalent to the combined area of California, Arizona, and Colorado. Those acres include Pacific Northwest - r and ponderosa forests; Great Basin big sagebrush lands; the richly H oral Sonoran Desert; magni- cent high-desert Joshua tree forests; varied shrub associations in the low-elevation Mojave, Great Basin, Chihuahuan, and other southwestern deserts; and extensive Colorado Plateau pinyon–juniper forests stretching from northern Arizona and New Mexico to southern Colorado and Utah and decorating the arid inland plateaus of Washington, Oregon, and northeastern California. Proponents of public lands grazing argue that cattle have not changed anything. They just replace the immense herds of hooved native herbivores—bison, deer, antelope, and elk—that once dominated western ranges. But in pre-European settlement times, natural forces, including unlimited predators and limited fodder, effectively controlled the native animal populations. Unlike cattle, the herds of deer, antelope, and elk wintered in generally snow-free lowland areas and used much less than their full range each year. And those animals were easier on the land, especially the rivers. Immense bison herds ranged over vast areas, never staying very long on any range. Bison rarely visited the sites of today’s major livestock grazing problems in Great Basin and southwestern deserts, however. On northern ranges, bison obtained winter moisture from eating snow and did not cling to creeks and streams the way cattle do.

Twenty-two-year-old Aldo Leopold arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory, in July 1909, burning with the “fervor of a sawdust evangelist.” The Forest Service had sent him to his first choice—District 3, encompassing the twenty-one forests of the South and Southwest. His duties were outlined in his manual: preserve a perpetual supply of timber for home industries, prevent destruction of forest cover (which regulates the flow of streams), and protect local industries from unfair competition in the use of forest and range. The district chief was Arthur Ringland, a stocky, energetic Yale graduate only a few years older than Leopold. Ringland sensed the new graduate’s enthusiasm and assigned him to the wildest lands in the district—the Apache National Forest in Arizona Territory. The land had originally belonged to the Apache Nation, but in 1886, the US Army forced most of the members onto a nearby reservation. This left but a few ranchers, farmers, and miners in the region. The forest headquarters rested in Springerville, Arizona, a two-day stagecoach ride from the last railroad stop. No automobiles carved tire treads over these plateaus and canyons. Travel was by foot, horse, or mule. Forest Assistant Leopold, the newest greenhorn among many, wasted no time in purchasing a feisty gray stallion called Jiminy Hicks, a saddle, a rope, and a few good roping lessons. Within the month, he also acquired pistols and a “rubber butt plate” for those long days in the saddle. The rubber plate came in handy since Aldo put in a good deal of time astride Jiminy Hicks. Throughout July and the beginning of August, Leopold inspected trees, marked them for cutting, planted seed plots, fixed fences, and met the other rangers. Working under Supervisor John D. Guthrie, Aldo contributed his two bits on policy decisions about grazing permits, water rights, and timber sales. Guthrie’s long hours and dedicated stance inspired the young ranger. The simplicity of life on the range, where one had to live out of a pack, made Leopold feel tough and free. On his own time, he hunted, mapped out the forest for himself, climbed mountains, and tested trout streams.

Abstract Heterotrophic flagellates are an integral and important component of the plankton communities of aquatic ecosystems. Abundances of heterotrophic flagellates in most natural plankton assemblages range from 10 to 10 cells per ml. Recent advances in the methods of counting flagellates and of examining their trophic activities have established that they are significant consumers of bacterial, cyanobacterial, and micro-algal biomass in these environments. Their grazing activities arc the primary factor controlling bacterial densities. Flagellate herbivory can significantly affect the abundances of photosynthetic prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Collectively, the trophic behaviour of these protozoa dictates the fate of a substantial portion of primary and secondary productivity in plank tonic ecosystems.

Laser-produced plasmas emit intense X radiation primarily at sub-KeV Photon energies. Spectra in the sub-KeV region were measured with a pinhole transmission grating and grazing incidence spectrographs respectively. The transmission grating spectrometer with two pinholes of 25 μm and 50 μm in diameter is consisted of free-standing gold bars (1000 Lines/mm, bar thickness 0.45 pm). The wavelength resolution achieved in the spectrometer was 10Å. The grazing incidence spectrograph is composed of a toroidal mirror and a concave grating. It is designed to cover the spectral range of 10~450 Å in the first difraction order. The angles of incidence on both mirror and grating are 87~87.5° in order to maintain good efficiency down to 20 Å. The spectrograph of 998.8 mm radius and 2400 grooves/mm, the brazing angle being 2°.

Because of the growing importance of extreme ultraviolet radiation, there is considerable interest in high intensity laboratory sources for this spectral range. A variety of sources have been proposed for these wavelengths, and many of these are described in the classic book of Samson (1967). Most of these sources have substantial limitations, especially those that are intended for use below 1200 Å. We (Paresce et al. 1971) and others have developed continuous discharge sources which are stable and maintenance-free and which provide a large number of intense lines at wavelengths down to ~300 Å. Soft X-ray sources of the type developed and refined by Henke (1975) are capable of producing substantial amounts of soft X-ray radiation. However, these sources have severe limitations for use at wavelengths longer than ~50 Å. For example, much of the radiation produced is continuum radiation with rather low flux at any specific line. In addition, the flux is peaked at shorter wavelengths. When dispersed by a grazing incidence monochromator, wavelengths at first order and many higher orders emerge from the exit slit, rather than a true monochromatic flux which is usually desired. Essentially the only sources available that can provide reasonable flux levels at wavelengths between 50 and 300 Å are capacitive discharge sources with attendant problems of severe electromagnetic interference, and plasma discharge sources.

Research objectives were: 1) To study the effect of diet energy density, level of exercise, thermal conditions and reproductive state on cardiovascular function as it relates to oxygen (O2) mobilization. 2) To validate the use of heart rate (HR) to predict energy expenditure (EE) of ruminants, by measuring and calculating the energy balance components at different productive and reproductive states. 3) To validate the use of HR to identify changes in the metabolizable energy (ME) and ME intake (MEI) of grazing ruminants. Background: The development of an effective method for the measurement of EE is essential for understanding the management of both grazing and confined feedlot animals. The use of HR as a method of estimating EE in free-ranging large ruminants has been limited by the availability of suitable field monitoring equipment and by the absence of empirical understanding of the relationship between cardiac function and metabolic rate. Recent developments in microelectronics provide a good opportunity to use small HR devices to monitor free-range animals. The estimation of O2 uptake (VO2) of animals from their HR has to be based upon a consistent relationship between HR and VO2. The question as to whether, or to what extent, feeding level, environmental conditions and reproductive state affect such a relationship is still unanswered. Studies on the basic physiology of O2 mobilization (in USA) and field and feedlot-based investigations (in Israel) covered a , variety of conditions in order to investigate the possibilities of using HR to estimate EE. In USA the physiological studies conducted using animals with implanted flow probes, show that: I) although stroke volume decreases during intense exercise, VO2 per one heart beat per kgBW0.75 (O2 Pulse, O2P) actually increases and measurement of EE by HR and constant O2P may underestimate VO2unless the slope of the regression relating to heart rate and VO2 is also determined, 2) alterations in VO2 associated with the level of feeding and the effects of feeding itself have no effect on O2P, 3) both pregnancy and lactation may increase blood volume, especially lactation; but they have no effect on O2P, 4) ambient temperature in the range of 15 to 25°C in the resting animal has no effect on O2P, and 5) severe heat stress, induced by exercise, elevates body temperature to a sufficient extent that 14% of cardiac output may be required to dissipate the heat generated by exercise rather than for O2 transport. However, this is an unusual situation and its affect on EE estimation in a freely grazing animal, especially when heart rate is monitored over several days, is minor. In Israel three experiments were carried out in the hot summer to define changes in O2P attributable to changes in the time of day or In the heat load. The animals used were lambs and young calves in the growing phase and highly yielding dairy cows. In the growing animals the time of day, or the heat load, affected HR and VO2, but had no effect on O2P. On the other hand, the O2P measured in lactating cows was affected by the heat load; this is similar to the finding in the USA study of sheep. Energy balance trials were conducted to compare MEI recovery by the retained energy (RE) and by EE as measured by HR and O2P. The trial hypothesis was that if HR reliably estimated EE, the MEI proportion to (EE+RE) would not be significantly different from 1.0. Beef cows along a year of their reproductive cycle and growing lambs were used. The MEI recoveries of both trials were not significantly different from 1.0, 1.062+0.026 and 0.957+0.024 respectively. The cows' reproductive state did not affect the O2P, which is similar to the finding in the USA study. Pasture ME content and animal variables such as HR, VO2, O2P and EE of cows on grazing and in confinement were measured throughout three years under twenty-nine combinations of herbage quality and cows' reproductive state. In twelve grazing states, individual faecal output (FO) was measured and MEI was calculated. Regression analyses of the EE and RE dependent on MEI were highly significant (P&lt;0.001). The predicted values of EE at zero intake (78 kcal/kgBW0.75), were similar to those estimated by NRC (1984). The EE at maintenance condition of the grazing cows (EE=MEI, 125 kcal/kgBW0.75) which are in the range of 96.1 to 125.5 as presented by NRC (1996 pp 6-7) for beef cows. Average daily HR and EE were significantly increased by lactation, P&lt;0.001 and P&lt;0.02 respectively. Grazing ME significantly increased HR and EE, P&lt;0.001 and P&lt;0.00l respectively. In contradiction to the finding in confined ewes and cows, the O2P of the grazing cows was significantly affected by the combined treatments (P&lt;0.00l ); this effect was significantly related to the diet ME (P&lt;0.00l ) and consequently to the MEI (P&lt;0.03). Grazing significantly increased O2P compared to confinement. So, when EE of grazing animals during a certain season of the year is estimated using the HR method, the O2P must be re measured whenever grazing ME changes. A high correlation (R2&gt;0.96) of group average EE and of HR dependency on MEI was also found in confined cows, which were fed six different diets and in growing lambs on three diets. In conclusion, the studies conducted in USA and in Israel investigated in depth the physiological mechanisms of cardiovascular and O2 mobilization, and went on to investigate a wide variety of ruminant species, ages, reproductive states, diets ME, time of intake and time of day, and compared these variables under grazing and confinement conditions. From these combined studies we can conclude that EE can be determined from HR measurements during several days, multiplied by O2P measured over a short period of time (10-15 min). The study showed that RE could be determined during the growing phase without slaughtering. In the near future the development microelectronic devices will enable wide use of the HR method to determine EE and energy balance. It will open new scopes of physiological and agricultural research with minimizes strain on animals. The method also has a high potential as a tool for herd management.

Heat production (HP) or energy expenditure for activity (EEa) is of fundamental nutritional importance for livestock because it determines the proportion of ingested nutrients available for productive functions. Previous estimates of EEa are unreliable and vary widely with different indirect methodologies. This leads to erroneous nutritional strategies, especially when intake on pasture does not meet nutritional requirements and supplementation is necessary for acceptable production. Therefore, the objective of this project was to measure EEa in different classes of livestock (beef cattle and goats) over a wide range of ecological and management conditions to develop and evaluate simple means of prediction. In the first study in Israel, small frame (SF) and large frame (LF) cows (268 and 581 kg) were monitored during spring, summer, and autumn. Feed intake by SF cows per unit of metabolic weight was greater (P &lt; 0.001) than that by LF cows in both spring and summer and their apparent selection of higher quality herbage in spring was greater (P &lt; 0.10) than that of LF cows. SF cows grazed more hours per day and walked longer distances than the LF cows during all seasons. The coefficient of specific costs of activities (kJ•kg BW-0.75•d-1) and of locomotion (J•kg BW-0.75•m-1) were smaller for the SF cows. In the second study, cows were monitored in March, May, and September when they grazed relatively large plots, 135 and 78 ha. Energy cost coefficients of standing, grazing, and horizontal locomotion derived were similar to those of the previous study based on data from smaller plots. However, the energy costs of walking idle and of vertical locomotion were greater than those found by Brosh et al. (2006) but similar to those found by Aharoni et al. (2009). In the third study, cows were monitored in February and May in a 78-ha plot with an average slope of 15.5°, whereas average plot slopes of the former studies ranged between 4.3 and 6.9°. Energy cost coefficients of standing, grazing, and walking idle were greater than those calculated in the previous studies. However, the estimated energy costs of locomotion were lower in the steeper plot. A comparison on a similar HP basis, i.e., similar metabolizable energy (ME) intake, shows that the daily energy spent on activities in relation to daily HP increased by 27% as the average plot slope increased from 5.8 and 6.02 to 15.5°. In the fourth study, cows grazing in a woodland habitat were monitored as in previous studies in December, March, and July. Data analysis is in progress. In the first US experiment, Boer and Spanish does with two kids were used in an experiment beginning in late spring at an average of 24 days after kidding. Two does of each breed resided in eight 0.5-ha grass/forb pastures. Periods of 56, 60, 63, 64, and 73 days in length corresponded to mid-lactation, early post-weaning, the late dry period, early gestation, and mid-gestation. EEa expressed as a percentage of the ME requirement for maintenance plus activity in confinement (EEa%) was not influenced by stocking rate, breed, or period, averaging 49%. Behavioral activities (e.g., time spent grazing, walking, and idle, distance traveled) were not highly related to EEa%, although no-intercept regressions against time spent grazing/eating and grazing/eating plus walking indicated an increase in EEa% of 5.8 and 5.1%/h, respectively. In the second study, animal types were yearling Angora doeling goats, yearling Boer wether goats, yearling Spanish wether goats, and Rambouilletwether sheep slightly more than 2 yr of age. Two animals of each type were randomly allocated to one of four pastures 9.3, 12.3, 4.6, and 1.2 ha in area. The experiment was conducted in the summer with three periods, 30, 26, and 26 days in length. EEa% was affected by an interaction between animal type and period (Angora: 16, 17, and 15; Boer: 60, 67, and 34; Spanish: 46, 62, and 42; sheep: 22, 12, and 22% in periods 1, 2, and 3, respectively (SE = 6.1)). EEa% of goats was predicted with moderate accuracy (R2 = 0.40-0.41) and without bias from estimates of 5.8 and 5.1%/h spent grazing/eating and grazing/eating plus walking, respectively, determined in the first experiment; however, these methods were not suitable for sheep. These methods of prediction are simpler and more accurate than currently recommended for goats by the National Research Council.