Mapping the Daily Requirement of Grazing Animal on the Rangelands of West Azerbaijan

Several sheep breeds with different sizes use the rangelands in different climatic regions of West Azerbaijan province. Since these rangelands differ regarding the vegetation and physical characteristics and these differences cause the amount of animals’ mobility to vary, the amount of required forage for providing their daily metabolic energy at different grazing times would not be the same. Therefore, to organize the animal feeding on the rangeland, mapping the daily requirement of animals grazing on the rangelands of area was necessary. In this regard, at first, the average amount of metabolic energy per unit weight of rangelands grazed by animals at different growth stages in the summer and winter rangelands were identified and then, considering the daily metabolic energy requirement of each sheep breed in maintenance state, the amount of daily required forage was determined, and on the basis of mentioned results, the map of daily animal requirement at different growth stages was provided. According to the obtained results, it was found that the amount of forage providing the daily requirement of sheep breeds in different climatic pastures of the province varied between 1.04 and 2.31kg per day, so that the least amount was related to the forage providing daily requirement of Makui breed (with an average weight of 45.36 kg) at the initial growth stages of summer rangelands in the northern areas of the province, and the highest amount belonged to the forage providing daily requirement of Ghezel breed (with an average weight of 71.57 kg) and the Herki breed (with an average weight of 53.50kg) at the final growth stages (seeding stage) of winter rangelands in the southern areas of the province.