Grazing is the feeding behaviour by which herbivorous animals consume standing forage, principally grasses and other pasture plants, directly from the land. In veterinary and animal-health terms it is the dominant nutritional system for ruminants such as cattle and sheep and for grazing equids, shaping body conditio…
Grazing is the feeding behaviour by which herbivorous animals consume standing forage, principally grasses and other pasture plants, directly from the land. In veterinary and animal-health terms it is the dominant nutritional system for ruminants such as cattle and sheep and for grazing equids, shaping body condition, growth, reproduction, and exposure to environmental disease. Pasture-based husbandry must balance forage quality and quantity against intake, and longitudinal monitoring of pastures alongside body condition scoring, as applied to managed horse populations, allows managers to match nutritional supply to physiological demand and avoid both undernutrition and obesity. Grazing also governs the epidemiology of parasitic and infectious disease, because animals acquire many pathogens from contaminated herbage, water, and soil. Trematode infections such as ovine and bovine fasciolosis depend on snail-inhabited wet pastures; gastrointestinal nematodes accumulate where stocking density and rotation are poorly managed; and tick infestation, with its associated tick-borne pathogens, is influenced by herd mobility and acaricide use. Land-use practices around grazing land further affect water quality and the conservation of wild mammals that share the landscape. Effective grazing management therefore integrates nutrition, pasture ecology, parasite control, and stewardship of the surrounding environment to sustain productive and healthy livestock.
8 peer-reviewed articles, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.
The 8 articles above have been cited 21 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Grazing, linking to each citing work.