R7376: A practical decision support tool to improve the feedmanagement of ruminant work animals. Final Technical Report

Deteriorating levels of food production and increasing demands for food have reduced food security amongst rural communities in poor countries. Draught animaltechnology can help alleviate this problem by improving timeliness and reducing human drudgery (particularly amongst women) of cropping activities (Starkey, 1994).However, draught animals compete for limited forage resources with other classes of livestock that are more directly associated with food production such as dairy andbeef cattle. Improving the sustainable work output and the cull market value of draught cattle can result in improved food security of the rural poorer by:1) Reducing the number of animals that need to be retained to replace culleddraught cattle thereby increasing meat output.2) Improving the sale value of draught cattle at the end of their working life.The work demands placed on draught animals within crop-farming systems are seasonal. Frequently these demands are highest when feed resources are most limitedboth in terms of quality and quantity. Research into the nutrition of draught animals has shown that animals are able to tolerate the live weight losses (resulting fromenergy deficits) that occur during the working season if an effort is made to compensate for these losses during the non-working season (Lawrence and Pearson,2000). Fall et al. (1997) have suggested that if the progressive deterioration in body condition of draught animals from season to season is avoided then work output can be sustained over several seasons and the market value at the end of an animal’sworking life is enhanced