Simple Field Test Indicates Cattle Grazing Behavior

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have been studying cattle behavior to identify individuals best matched to the landscape for optimal grazing. The project seeks to better understand the grazing personalities of cattle. It began with the discovery that individual cattle have distinct grazing personalities that affect how far and wide they graze. The third phase of the project sought to develop a practical field test that would easily indicate what type of grazer a particular cow is. Researchers tested whether cattle that had just been worked would return to their herd or visit a feeder of sweet feed independently. The cattle that wandered to the sweet feed were reliably the same cattle that ranged far and wide while grazing. Researchers plan to explore whether the independent grazing is a heritable trait.