Goats for maximal efficacy of brush control

Background. Brush encroachment constitutes a serious problem in both Texas and Israel. We addressed the issue of efficacy of livestock herbivory - in the form of goat browsing - to change the ecological balance to the detriment of the shrub vegetation. Shrub consumption by goats is kept low by plant chemical defenses such as tannins and terpenes. Scientists at TAES and ARO have developed an innovative, cost-effective methodology using fecal Near Infrared Spectrometry to elucidate the dietary percentage of targeted, browse species (terpene-richredberry and blueberry juniper in the US, and tannin-rich Pistacialentiscus in Israel) for a large number of animals. The original research objectives of this project were: 1. to clarify the relative preference of goat breeds and the individual variation of goats within breeds, when consuming targeted brush species; 2. to assess the heritability of browse intake and validate the concept of breeding goat lines that exhibit high preference for chemically defended brush, using juniper as a model; 3. to clarify the relative contributions of genetics and learning on the preference for target species; 4. to identify mechanisms that are associated with greater intake of brush from the two target species; 5. to establish when the target species are the most vulnerable to grazing. (Issue no.5 was addressed only partly.) Major conclusions, solutions, achievements: Both the Israel and US scientists put significant efforts into improving and validating the technique of Fecal NIRS for predicting the botanical composition of goat diets. Israeli scientists validated the use of observational data for calibrating fecal NIRS, while US scientists established that calibrations could be used across animals differing in breed and age but that caution should be used in making comparisons between different sexes. These findings are important because the ability to select goat breeds or individuals within a breed for maximal efficiency of brush control is dependent upon accurate measurement of the botanical composition of the diet. In Israel it was found that Damascus goats consume diets more than twice richer in P. lentiscus than Mamber or Boer goats. In the US no differences were found between Angora and Boer cross goats but significant differences were found between individuals within breeds in juniper dietary percentage. In both countries, intervention strategies were found that further increased the consumption of the chemically defended plant. In Israel feeding polyethylene glycol (PEG, MW 4,000) that forms high-affinity complexes with tannins increased P. lentiscus dietary percentage an average of 7 percentage units. In the US feeding a protein supplement, which enhances rates of P450-catalyzed oxidations and therefore the rate of oxidation of monoterpenes, increased juniper consumption 5 percentage units. However, the effects of these interventions were not as large as breed or individual animal effects. Also, in a wide array of competitive tannin-binding assays in Israel with trypsin, salivary proteins did not bind more tannic acid or quebracho tannin than non-specific bovine serum albumin, parotid saliva did not bind more tannins than mixed saliva, no response of tannin-binding was found to levels of dietary tannins, and the breed effect was of minor importance, if any. These fundings strongly suggest that salivary proteins are not the first line of defense from tannin astringency in goats. In the US relatively low values for heritability and repeatability for juniper consumption were found (13% and 30%, respectively), possibly resulting from sampling error or non-genetic transfer of foraging behavior, i.e., social learning. Both alternatives seem to be true as significant variation between sequential observations were noted on the same animal and cross fostering studies conducted in Israel demonstrated that kids raised by Mamber goats showed lower propensity to consume P. lentiscus than counterparts raised by Damascus goats.