Experiences in utero and in early life are important for animals to become locally adapted to their surrounding social and physical landscapes.
Drawing on Fred Provenza’s observations on how wild and domestic animals live and forage, our animals can make the best use of the pastures we have (whatever they be), if our animals are locally adapted to the area. For a breeding herd this is easier to achieve because the animals are not being brought in to unfamiliar territory and feedtypes. There should still however be some thought put into grazing management of pregnant mothers, as well as cows and calves with regard to differences of soil type and feed type across a farm. For those who are trading, backgrounding animals (from a different area) or who have animals on agistment from a different area, there may be impacts on performance if not locally adapted – depending on how different the environments are that they are being moved across.
As I wrote about in the introduction to this topic a few weeks back, animals adapt to different environments in early life, through learning from their mothers. They learn to eat nutritious plants and to avoid the potentially toxic ones. This can come through social learning of the offspring from mothers, but also through other means, like animals learning certain flavours as they experience them through their mother’s milk, which they are then more likely to favour as adults.
Learnings from the mother can go past feed selection to learning the position of things like water sources, shade and even where predators are most likely a threat.1
We can aid this learning and adaptation by ensuring animal exposure to different feed types, farm areas and supplements both in utero and prior to weaning. Let’s look at a few examples to understand the impacts that this can have.
Two groups of lambs were fed whole wheat for just 1 hour a day for 5 days. One group of lambs were with their mothers, while the other group were not. Lambs were six weeks of age at the time of the trial and the group with their mothers ate much more wheat than the group without their mothers. What is really amazing though, is when both groups were fed grain 3 years later, there was a 10 fold greater intake of wheat of those that had been exposed to the wheat with their mothers’ earlier in life, versus those without their mothers or to those not exposed to the wheat at all.1 Quite an amazing outcome for such a short exposure early in the animals’ life.
As mentioned, these learnings also extend to earlier in the offsprings’ life – in utero. “Pregnant cows that eat high-fibre forages in winter, a time when their energy needs are only marginally met, prepare offspring to use high-fibre forages: compared with naive offspring, experienced animals eat more and better digest high-fibre forages and they grow better. Experiences early in life further enhance performance, as illustrated in a study where calves were exposed to straw with their mothers for 2 months; as adult cows 5 years later, they were fed straw as a major part of their diet from December to May for 3 years. Throughout the study, experienced cows ate more straw, gained more weight, maintained better body condition, produced more milk, and conceived sooner than cows not exposed to straw.”2
An Australian example of this is a trial undertaken with pregnant ewes feeding on saltbush. Pregnant ewes were fed on saltbush from when 2 months pregnant until 3 weeks after lambing (hence the lambs then also feeding on the saltbush). The lambs were assessed on their performance on saltbush at 10 months of age. The lambs whose mothers had grazed on saltbush during and post pregnancy ate more saltbush, gained more weight, produced heavier fleeces, were more quickly able to excrete salt from their systems and consumed less water.3
For those that supplementary feed livestock at times, it is likely worth introducing animals to this whilst with their mothers – even if briefly, (regardless of the necessity for that particular supplement at that time), as the above mentioned work indicates that this may have positive effects on performance if the need arises to supplement when they are older. This is further supported by sheep and lamb responses to molasses/urea blocks. “Eating with mom also increased acceptance of urea/molasses blocks by lambs and the likelihood lambs would eat blocks as adults. Use and intake of urea/molasses blocks by livestock is often variable. Lambs were exposed to urea-molasses block with mother from 3 to 14 weeks of age or they were not exposed to blocks. Forty weeks later, lambs, now yearlings, were offered molasses block for 3 weeks. For the group exposed to molasses blocks as lambs, 29 of 30 ate 62 pounds (28kg) of block, while sheep inexperienced with blocks only ate 7 pounds (3kg) of block and only 15 of 30 ate any of the molasses blocks during the trial”.
This makes me think about ‘shy feeders’ and is this just a reflection of animals that have not been exposed to that environment or feed type as young animals with their mothers? Could shy feeders be reduced by allowing adaptation with mothers at an early age? I might follow this up with Fred.
My previous discussions with Fred Provenza told me that lack of performance due to poor adaptability (when animals have been moved to a new landscape) is most likely when livestock are going from a soft feed type to a less favourable environment. In the case that animals are moved out of their local landscapes (especially to a harsher feed climate) adults can take up to 3 years to adapt to a change in their diet and habitat selection. They may perform relatively poorly in the first year, better in the second and express great adaption and performance by the third year. Having said that, young stock will adapt and learn more quickly than older stock.
The planned grazing systems, common to regenerative farmers, lends itself to offspring adaptability. The nature of planned grazing on our property means that we have less mobs, and these mobs are moved across the whole farm, allowing pregnant mothers and calves to experience all feed types and the differing soil types on the farm (which host different species).
So, the message for any graziers is to think about what your animals will be feeding on over the course of their lifetime, or time in your business (whether it be pasture species, shrubs, supplements or pasture state (fresh, lignified etc), and ensure (as much as practical) that the offspring have exposure to these feed types prior to weaning and even in utero. This will contribute to their local adaptation and better performance. It may even avoid stock losses from livestock not adapted to potentially toxic plants.
References
1. Burritt, B. (2013). Mother Knows Best. Retrieved 13th April from https://extension.usu.edu/behave/files/uploads/Fact_sheets_basic/Mother.pdf
2 &3. .Provenza, F.D., M. Meuret, and P. Gregorini. 2015. What humans can learn from herbivores about nourishing links between palates and landscapes. Appetite, submitted.
4. Chadwick, M. (2009) Fetal Programming of sheep for production on saltbush. Doctor of Philosophy of Animal Science. University of W.A. Australia.