| The objectives of the research within this dissertation were to 1) evaluate the efficacy of using low-stress herding (LSH) and low-moisture block (LMB) protein supplement to target cattle grazing within diverse rangelands in the southwest USA and 2) assess the strength of social associations and determine social association patterns of visually-observed and GPS-tracked cattle grazing in the western United States. Lowstress-herding and LMB were effective tools to focus cattle and increase utilization on 3 to 5 ha targeted areas within large pastures. With LSH and LMB cattle spent 6.9 +/- 0.6 hrs · d-1 in target areas compared to only 0.5 +/- 0.6 hrs · d-1 on non-target areas. Intake of LMB was key to keeping cattle within target areas surrounding LMB. When intake of LMB was less than recommended levels (0.25 to 0.68 kg · (d-1), cattle spent 1.3 +/- 0.3 hrs · d-1 within 250 m of LMB, but when intake was at recommended levels cattle spent 8.8 +/- 0.9 hrs · d -1 within 250 m of LMB supplement placements. Visual observations of cattle in Montana indicated that cattle in small groups (< 40 cows) tended to have greater association strengths compared to larger herd sizes. Only weak associations (cattle observed with the same cow in less than 30 % of the observations) were observed at smaller spatial scales (i.e., group, cattle within 30 m of each other), but at larger scales cattle were typically observed with a subset of other cattle in the same general section of the pasture in greater than 50 % of the observation periods. Weak associations at the group scale indicate that strong social associations may not have a large influence on herd distribution or management practices. Lastly, subsets of GPS-tracked cattle in several different herd sizes and management situations were greater than 500 m from each other for over 50 % of the time that cattle were tracked, indicating that under some situations a subset of GPS-tracked cattle may be considered sufficiently independent to use individual animal as an experimental unit. |
