Who’s Coming to Dinner? — transcript
You may have heard the saying, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.” The phrase
suggests you should avoid looking into the horse’s mouth in checking his age or
health, especially if someone gives it to you for free. That’s certainly good social
etiquette, but it may not be the best for your animal. Those of us who raise horses
and other livestock need to remember that our animals’ mouths can tell us a lot
about the way we take care of them.
The structure of an animal’s mouth helps determine how and what it will eat. Since
most animals are built differently, they eat differently. Designing the right pasture is
like preparing the right menu. It is also the best way to use and care for land.
Everyone benefits when we raise healthy animals and protect the environment.
Let’s do lunch with a few of our animal friends and learn about the differences in the
way they eat.
When cows eat taller grass, their tongue sweeps out in an arc, wraps around the
plant parts, then pulls them between the teeth on the lower jaw and a pad on the
upper part of its mouth. The cow swings its head so its teeth can sever the grass. It
then grinds the food and mixes it with saliva before swallowing. The lips, teeth, and
jaws of a cow make it difficult to get closer than two inches from the soil. They eat
most efficiently when the grass is about six inches tall. At that height, cows can snip
the grass and don’t have to pull it into their mouths. This allows them to concentrate
on arranging rather than gathering the feed. Anytime the feed is longer or shorter
than six inches, they have to work harder for each mouthful of food. When eating
efficiently, cows can take about 80 bites a minute, eight hours a day. That often adds
up to 130 pounds of food each day.
Think of a grazing animal as being similar to your lawnmower. When the grass
grows tall, your lawnmower may bog down or quit altogether. If the grass is very
short, mowing is a waste of time and energy. Grazing animals are much like
lawnmowers in that they eat most efficiently when the pasture is at its optimum
height.
Cows will not work overtime to eat more food even if they have very little grass to
eat. If you want to help your cattle gain weight, it’s important to pay attention to the
pasture’s height, quality, and density. Cows can handle steep or rocky areas but
prefer rolling land. This saves more energy for the day’s main task: eating.
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Do you remember your mother telling you to chew up your food before swallowing?
Well, cows seem to practice what your mother preached. They eat very quickly the
first time around, then regurgitate the swallowed food later. This gives them a
second chance to chew and grind their food some more. The process goes on for
about 12 hours each day and is called “chewing the cud” or rumination.
No wonder we can party til the cows come home. Ruminant animals spend about 20
hours each day either eating or ruminating.
Animals won’t eat grass around their own manure, but don’t mind that of other
animals. This means different animals can often utilize the same pasture, since they
don’t eat in the same way.
Sheep do not extend their tongues like cows do. Their upper lips are split, which
helps bring in the food. Their lower lips move away from their teeth, helping them
cut blades of grass with the teeth on the lower jaw and a dental pad on the upper
jaw. This pad is similar to a cutting board. Sheep take smaller bites than cows, so
they can be more selective about what they eat. Sheep also eat closer to the ground
than cows. This fact precipitated the range wars of the mid 1800s and inspired a
number of movies about cattle ranchers who didn’t want sheep grazing in their
territory.
If you want to talk about a really close shave, you’ve got to look a hungry horse in
the mouth. Horses bite with a set of upper and lower incisor teeth found in the front
of their mouth. They grind their food with a set of molars in the back of their mouth.
These molars are found behind the space we use for a bit. With a short tongue and a
sensitive, strong upper lip, horses bring food to their front teeth and then bite. Over
a lifetime, their teeth grow and wear off naturally, but occasionally need filing to
make grazing as efficient as possible. Horses are selective grazers, yet spend less
time eating than cows or sheep. This leaves time for other more enjoyable activities.
Horses, cows, and sheep are basically grazers eating grasses, legumes, and other
leafy plants. Meanwhile, goats and wildlife (such as elk and deer) are mainly
browsers. These animals consume woody foods such as twigs and bark. We’ve all
heard stories or songs about goats eating tin cans, red flags, and shoes. Well, they
may be partially true, since goats enjoy a smorgasbord of foods. Like sheep, goats
have a pad on their upper jaw and teeth on their lower jaw. They have very mobile
upper lips and good tongues for grabbing food. This helps goats avoid thorns and
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spines that are found on thistles and other prickly plants. Most of all, goats enjoy
eating young, tender leaves and twigs. They are very good at selectively grabbing
the most delectable parts of a plant, so protect your new seedlings.
Different animals have different equipment for eating. Pastures and wildlife areas
will reflect these different eating styles. Let’s visit a few pastures with Oregon State
University forage technician Bob Klinger. He will show us a variety of pastures and a
number of animals in action.
You can generally tell what has grazed a pasture even after the animals have left by
looking at what has been grazed and what has been left and how it’s been grazed. In
this pasture, for example, the sheep are going through topping the seed heads,
eating the high energy seed, and taking the leaves and leaving all the stems.
Cows consume a wide variety of grasses and other plants and, with proper grazing
management, will leave the vegetation about six inches high. Goats are said to eat
anything, but they actually prefer woody shrubs and grasses over leafy clover. That
means goats will eat vegetation that sheep and cows will not eat. Horses, on the
other hand, will avoid certain grasses and can ruin a pasture by indulging in their
favorites.
Food selection isn’t the only impact on a pasture’s health. The size of the animal and
its grazing habits can also create an impact. Horses usually spread out to eat,
creating a more even grazing on the pasture. Cows and sheep tend to work as a
group with concentrated impacts of grazing. Grazing too many animals in a pasture
over a short period of time, or leaving a few animals there for too long, can both
result in overgrazing. When too many animals are grazing on a single pasture, they
overgraze due to the shortage of feed. On the other hand, a few animals left too long
on a single pasture will repeatedly clip the young, tasty regrowth. They will reject
the ungrazed plant which tends to be more coarse and less tasty.
Here we have a pasture where the stock came in too late. You can see by the height
of the stems that are still standing how much grass was here when the animals got
here. What you can’t see apparently is how much feed was trampled and thus
wasted. But in just this little area all this grass is no longer feed, and not only is it not
feed but it’s tying up all the nutrients instead of getting back to the cycle and
producing the regrowth that should be here.
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Okay, if we look at this pasture obliquely, it looks pretty nice. But, if you look down
from a bird’s eye view, you can see that half the ground is bare. This means half your
farm isn’t producing, and this is caused by pugging, which is the physical action of
the animals’ hoofs on the sod, removing the sod, baring the sod when it’s in wet
conditions. Now this leaves not only “eco spots” for the weeds to come in, which we
see in the background, it also raises your costs of production by 100% because only
half the farm is working for you.
Like humans, cows seem to believe the grass is always greener on the other side of
the fence. They will trample the area near the fence as they try to reach greener
pastures. Sheep and goats do not cause as much physical damage because they don’t
weigh as much and their feet are smaller. Still, they can overgraze an area in time.
So what does a good pasture look like? It has forage that is not too tall or too short
for the animal to eat effectively. It has vegetation that is palatable for animals that
graze there. Finally, it is managed in such a way that the animals do not pug and
overgraze it. Moving animals around from one pasture to another is one way to
maintain lush, healthy pastures. Properly maintained pastures can provide a
wonderful buffet for all kinds of animals, but proper care requires an understanding
of who is coming to dinner.
Let’s do a final review of what we have learned.
Horses have great teeth and agile lips. They can be very selective in their eating
habits, often graze very close to the soil, and can trample pastures easily, especially
wet ones. Horse pastures need a lot of care.
Cows are not as selective and don’t bite as close to the ground as horses and sheep.
They use a long and skillful tongue to bring food into their mouths, where they roll it
into a ball and then swallow it. Later, they regurgitate and re-chew their food for
proper digestion. Cattle can cause trampling damage if the pasture is wet or if bare
spots exist. They often trample a path along fences where they search for better food
in neighboring pastures.
Cows and sheep have only bottom teeth and a pad on their upper jaw, but sheep can
get closer to the soil because they have dexterous lips. Since sheep weigh less than
cows or horses, they are more likely to damage pastures by grazing the vegetation
too short as opposed to trampling it.
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Goats have amazingly selective lips and a taste for the woodier things. They rarely
cause trampling problems but can get into some rather unusual situations.
Finally, fencing plays a critical role in maintaining healthy, productive pastures.
Until recently, fencing was permanent, expensive, and generally worked for only one
or two types of livestock. Today, portable electric fencing provides a whole new
option. It can be used almost anywhere, is long lasting, and inexpensive. It is usually
powered by batteries or solar panels and can be used for all types of animals. This
flexibility gives farmers and ranchers more control over their livestock’s grazing
habits and helps maintain lush, healthy pastures.
Understanding our animals’ eating habits and applying that knowledge to grazing
management can lead to improved animal health, more productive pastures, and
responsible land use. Remember, you’ll be the talk of the pasture as long as you
think to ask, “Who’s coming to dinner?”
Right guys? (Mooing)
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