The intake of grazing livestock is the vital parameter to evaluate the conversion efficiency and produc-tivity of grassland ecosystem,and is affected by plant growth,environmental condition,grazing management,physi-ological characteristics of livestock and its rumen environment.Accurate determination of intake is always difficult for researchers,which is related to the assessment of animal nutrition status,formulation of supplementary feeding strat-egy and the exploration of diet theory.Traditional quantification method for intake is based on direct observation or the biomass difference between pre-and post-grazing of grazing animals.These methods have well-known limita-tions.It could not estimate the intake of individual animal and is not suited for widely intake estimation.n-Alkane and near infrared spectrum(NIRS)methods outperforms these traditional methods in many respects(e.g.,accuracy or application condition).However,to date few studies have attempted to analysis intake of grazing animals by n-Al-kane and near infrared spectrum(NIRS)methods because of incomplete feces recovery and inaccurate database.The review illustrates and compares the principle of various methods,including different value,internal marker,n-alkane,near infrared spectroscopy and their recent process.It is also suggested that the combination of several methods could be used for the estimation of intake in grazing livestock.The review could provide new information and novel meth-ods to formulate reasonable management strategies of grassland ecosystem and realize the sustainable grassland eco-system function.
维普
万方数据