Spatially Resilient Grazing Systems: Measuring and optimising landscape utilisation in rangeland sheep and goats

Abstract

There is increasing interest amongst producers in the integration of small ruminant red meat production in Western Queensland. As part of this expansion, the industry is interested to understand how these animals use the landscapes in which they graze and how this might be optimised in terms of productivity and sustainability.

This report provides details of the activities undertaken to quantify small ruminant landscape utilisation by GPS tracking numerous animals on properties in Western Queensland. An analysis of the data collected is provided with a summary of insights gleaned from this also outlined. A review of literature explored the potential interventions that might be implemented to optimise landscape utilisation by small ruminants.

Spatial grazing distribution of all animals was clearly impacted by the position of water, particularly when stocking rates were low, and animals were able to become more selective in their grazing area. Where stocking rates were higher or feed less available the spatial grazing distribution expanded to fill most of the available paddock, suggesting animals are searching all available resource areas for feed.

The analysis of sheep and goats co-grazing found that overall, they shared similar grazing distributions. However, whilst sheep tend to graze similar broad areas within their species, goats tend to have smaller individually variable ranges.

Spatial grazing distribution of sheep and goats was also driven by landscape factors, the specific relationships require further analysis. The average distance to water varied, however nearly all animals across all properties did not exceed a maximum distance from water of 2.4km and was on average between 500m and 1200m. Temperature was found to be significantly related to animal behaviour with higher temperatures reducing the distance sheep and goats could be found from available water.

This project was terminated early as COVID related restrictions meant that key research staff could not travel to Australia from the key collaborating organisation New Mexico State University to undertake the required field observations and run proposed intervention trials.