Breed is not important in determining which animals would eat weeds. Longhorns, shorthorns, herefords, and angus-cross all ate weeds. Some animals ate more weeds than others, but this was not breed specific.
Our best weed eaters also had offspring who were good weed eaters.
When grazing leafy spurge, trainees stripped stems of leaves and flowers rather than eating the entire plant.
Trained animals add new weeds and brush to their diets
Grazing spotted knapweed (a herd favorite) and Canada thistle in pasture. |
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| Before and after photo of leafy spurge patch in trial pasture. |
Grant-Kohrs Ranch National Historic Site is adminstered by the National Park Service. It is a working, 1600 acre ranch, displaying our ranching heritage. This a cooperative project with the National Park Service, Utah State University, the town of Deer Lodge, the Perkins Ranch and the R Bar N Ranch. |
This was my first attempt to train cattle to eat weeds. The number of days for the training process has decreased dramatically since this first effort, but the foundation remains the same. We trained a herd of 19 to eat Canada thistle, leafy spurge and spotted knapweed in dry lot. They grazed Canada thistle and spotted knapweed in pasture in 2004, but riparian area use restrictions prevented us from testing them on leafy spurge in pasture. All cows but one had a calf in 2005. I returned in to see if the cows would train their calves to eat the weed and to test them on leafy spurge in pasture. Calves did learn from their mothers and they ate leafy spurge in pasture. We are following up with the herd in the summer of 2009. I've provided Ranch staff with procedures for observing trainees and herd mates in pasture to see how much of each target weed they are eating. I'll report results here. |
