The dietary preferences of domestic ruminants (cattle, sheep and goats) on Sahelian and Sudano-Sahelian ranges. IV. Diet description by mean of micro-histological analysis of samples of shepherd's hand-picking, alimentary bolus and faeces from cattle and sheep as an aid to characterize diet

Abstract

A research programme to study tropical pastures used by domestic livestock was implemented in Senegal. During field studies, numerous informations were collected together with many samples with three main aims: pasture composition, diet composition and relationship between each other. The so-called method of epiderms, more often used in temperate area, was chosen for analyzing and comparing the botanical composition of 105 samples e.g. shepherd's hand-picking, alimentary bolus and faeces collected along a twelve-month period. In view of the results, some methodological problems are raised and discussed.