GPS tracking reveals goat grazing insights

Australian first research into how rangeland goats use the landscapes in which they graze has revealed new insights that could help producers assess their own operations.

Funded by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and CQUniversity, the research project, Spatially Resilient Grazing Systems: Measuring and optimising landscape utilisation in rangeland sheep and goats, was led by CQUniversity’s Professor Mark Trotter.

The major component of the project involved deploying GPS tracking collars on a number of properties across western Queensland to collect objective location and movement data from goats and sheep.

The data was analysed in collaboration with New Mexico State University (NMSU) to explore a number of key animal behaviours and relationships with landscape features.

In addition, a review of literature explored the potential interventions that might be implemented to optimise landscape utilisation by small ruminants.

With increasing interest amongst producers in the integration of small ruminant red meat production in Western Queensland, the project sought to help producers understand how these animals use the landscapes in which they graze and how this might be optimised in terms of productivity and sustainability.

What did the study find?

While the project was terminated early due to COVID-19 related restrictions preventing key research staff from NMSU travelling to Australia, Prof. Trotter said the study revealed some interesting insights.

“It is difficult to extrapolate findings from the study to make general recommendations across the entire industry. However, the study found 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,” Prof. Trotter said.

“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.”

Temperature significantly impacted animal behaviour. Not surprisingly, higher temperatures reduced the distance goats and sheep could be found from available water.

While the average distance to water varied, nearly all animals across all properties did not exceed a maximum distance from water of 2.5km. Average distance from water was between 500m and 1,200m.

For every one degree increase in temperature, distance to water decreased by 5–20m.

“The fact that few animals grazed beyond 2.5 kilometres from a water source confirms the information currently being provided to the industry. However, given that most animals preferred to be within 500 metres of a water point suggests that a more intensive distribution of water points should be considered by producers seeking to optimise landscape utilisation,” Prof. Trotter said.

“Again, this cannot be made as a general recommendation but will provide producers seeking to develop country with infrastructure some guidance in their thinking.”

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

The average daily distance travelled by small ruminants across all sites varied between 5.7km for rangeland goats, to 8.1km for Merino ewes. The maximum distance travelled across all sites ranged from 6.5km for rangeland goats, to as much as 20.5km for Merino ewes.

GPS tracking

Prof. Trotter said one of the key benefits to industry is the value of the objective GPS tracking data to producers.

“For some producers involved, it revealed genuinely unknown trends in spatial landscape utilisation,” Prof. Trotter said.

“As we sat with producers and worked through the results, we were often met with exclamations of surprise that certain areas of a paddock were either used or not used by the goats and sheep.

“Although it is currently not possible for producers to generate this data outside of a research project, there are many commercial technology developers seeking to provide GPS tracking as a day-to-day management tool.

“The development of this service as an economically feasible tool will undoubtedly have a profound effect on enabling producers to gain deep insights into their livestock landscape interactions and subsequently implement management strategies to improve production and efficiency.

“The key to this will be the development of affordable systems that can be reliably deployed on small ruminants as most technology development is focussed on cattle at this stage,” Prof. Trotter said.