Integrating Pasture Vegetation Diversity to Improve Environmental Comfort and Welfare in Grazing Livestock Systems

Abstract

The pasture vegetation is important in stabilising the microclimatic conditions in grazing landscapes hence having a direct impact to the livestock comfort, behaviour and the general livestock welfare. This paper examines how the different degrees of pasture plant diversity affect thermal balance, soil water movement, as well as the grazing enthusiastic behaviour of cattle and small ruminants. In depth environmental values such as canopy shade, surface temperature, air humidity and soil moisture measurements are taken, as well as physiological measurement values that were made including respiration rate, body temperature, and grazing duration. The results demonstrate that high-diversity pastures were constant in creating cooler and stable micro classifications, amplifying the capacity of the land to keep water moisture, and also enabling better work to be done by the rulers. Symptoms of heat stress in livestock in such habitats were significantly less than in low-diversity pastures. The study highlights the importance of biodiversity-enhanced pastures as a viable nature-based intervention to enhance the livestock thermal comfort and sustainable management of grazing systems by showing that there is a strong correlation between terrestrial diversity and livestock thermal comfort.