Proceedings

Goats show a marked preference for young herbs when available but tend to eat more browse than sheep or cattle at most times and particularly when the nutritional plane is low. Goats are thus not obligate browsers and are more selective among shrub than among herbage species. When given a choice goats usually choose significantly different diets than do sheep and cattle and this is more important than differences in digestive abilities for range animals. Goats tend to be better digesters of fibre and have a better nitrogen balance than other stock, which may be of importance to animals with restricted diets. Goats have characteristic foraging behaviours which take them into different environments from sheep and cattle and they tend to avoid heat and cold stress. These differences make goats complementary to cattle and sheep in that greater secondary productivity can often be obtained by running goats as well as sheep and/or cattle, but this advantage is difficult to quantify and the different value of the products from the three species means that decisions are usually made on economic rather than gross productivity grounds. Angora goats produce fibre of higher value than that of sheep but there are not suited to all environments. Behaviour of feral goats in Australia is described in relation to the value and management