Foraging behaviour of cattle and goats in oak forest stands of varying coppicing age in Northern Greece

Oak forests cover a significant area in Greece and the majority are intensively managed, with a clear cutting cycle ranging from 20 to 30 years. The protection of these cleared forest stand against grazing is considered as a necessary management tool; however, such oak forests are presently grazed contrary on the current forest policy. As foraging behaviour may be an important aspect of management of grazing lands, we evaluated aspects of foraging behaviour of free-grazing cattle and goats in three oak forest stands with different coppicing age during four defined periods (spring: May-June, summer: July-August, autumn: September-October, and winter: November-December) in 1998 and 1999. The three forest stands were clear cut in 1996 (FS1996), 1993 (FS1993), and 1990 (FS1990). All forest stands carried similar amount of available herbage and its average utilization by animals was 40%. However, there were significant differences among periods with the lowest value in May (1000 kg/ha) and the highest in August (3500 kg/ha). The nutritive value of herbage and oak sprouts declined from spring to winter but oak sprouts had a higher nutritive value than herbage during summer and autumn. Both species of animals had a similar time spent per foraging station (TFS) in spring and winter for all the three forest stands, but in the autumn cattle had greater TFS than goats (P ≤ 0.05). During summer, cattle had significantly higher TFS than goats in FS1990 but both animal species had similar TFS in FS1993 and FS1996. Also cattle and goats had similar (P ≥ 0.05) bite rates during spring in all three forest stands, in summer in the FS1990, in autumn in the FS1996 and FS1990 and in winter in FS1993 and FS1990 but when significant differences were detected were in favour of goats. Cattle took the vast majority of their bites on herbage (97%) in all periods while goats' bites consisted of a mixture of oak browse (45%), herbaceous species (33%), and other woody species browse (22%). The foraging behaviour results are discussed in relation to current management practices of coppice oak forests in Greece.