Leaves have been traditionally used by farmers as animal feed, but relatively little is known about their potential to replace conventional food sources.
Ethology is based on the analysis of behavior, in terms of the magnitude of responses to the following variables:
external as is the environment
internal like hormonal influence of maturity or as neurosensory development.
Ethologists have focused the study of behavior on the mechanisms that control it, its ontogeny or development through the course of life and its phylogenic or evolutionary adaptation.
Feeding behavior of goats can be defined as:
“the relationship between the sensation of satisfaction produced by food ingestion and the sensations caused by each component of the ration within the organism once they’ve been ingested”
Goats are characterized by their great ability to adapt to the environment in the most unfavorable ecosystems. This is mainly due to their low selectivity regarding food taste, although they have special predilection for fodder and wet pastures.
Another adaptive advantage of goats is the ability to browse. Thanks to the capacity of incorporating themselves while supporting all of their weight only on their hind limbs. This allows them to look for shoots in the branches of trees and shrubs at heights of up to 2 meters.
Goats are considered by Hoffmann (1988) as: intermediate consumers within the herbivore classification that he proposes. However, they are capable of adapting to other environments, which allows them to act as: concentrate selectors or low quality fodder consumers.
According to Morand and Sauvant (1984) they defined goats as adaptive consumers with medium to high selectivity. This being partly related to the anatomical characteristics of their mouth which possess a wide mobility of the lips and a prehensile tongue. Such aspects allow this species to present a high selection capacity.
On the other hand, they don’t seem to manifest rejection towards bitter flavors, common to shrub legumes due to the presence of tannins.
»These nutritional characteristics linked to their eating behavior, create certain difficulties when trying to provide diets that contain necessary nutrients and are appetizing at the same time. With the purpose of maintaining good physiological condition and achieving acceptable production levels.
Goats usually choose different types of plants for consumption. This opens up the possibility to introduce plants thare are...
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