Cattle Diets in Tall Forb Communities on Mountain Rangelands

Thirteen grazing studies have recently documented diet botanical composition of cattle in tall forb plant communities on mountain rangelands. In forb-dominated plant communities, cattle selected forbs in proportion to their availability, (46 to 83% of their diets). In grass-dominated communities, forbs comprise only 11 to 32% of diets. On a landscape scale cattle preferred and spent proportionally more time grazing in forb-dominated communities. Taken together, these studies indicate that cattle have a wide acceptability for forage classes and can effectively utilize forb-dominated high mountain rangelands.