I'm leading a project in Maharashtra (India) in which we aim to calculate fodder autonomy across a range of smallholder dairy farms. We therefore ask farmers about their cow diet during Kharif, Rabi and summer. In one of the villages, animals are grazed for around 5 hours per day during Kharif and Rabi, in either collective grazinglands or along field boundaries (see pictures). Does anyone know references of herbage intake at pasture by Heifer or Jersey cross (and by buffaloes) on Indian grazinglands. Thanks so much for your help!
I suggest you look across any communal rangeland literature, and animal production literature. Herbage intake is primarily determined by physiology (metabolic mass of the animal and lactation), time spent grazing (versus other activities like walking, resting and ruminating), and quality of forage. So there is an abundance of literature all over the world on that subject. Animals that are constrained to forage for only a few hours a day do behave differently to animals that are camped on grazing land 24 hours a day.
You can also read one of recently published article in FIELD CROPS RESEARCH. SELECTED FODDER PLANTS AS PART OF AN INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT FOR PARTHENIUM HYSTEROPHORUS. Reading this article may be useful for you!
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