Breeding grazing habit traits

[Kiwi Pete]

Mine won't touch elder, it has cyanide in it doesn't it? That is supposed to be why it is common on rabbit warrens, they won't touch it.

Yes, I believe the leaves contain cyanide- inducing glycosides just as apple pips do.
Toxic to humans as far as I know but I imagine the quantity ingested would have a lot to do with it.
Apparently a woman in the US died from eating the best part of a trayful of roasted apple pips

Which does, in a way tie into this thread, many toxic substances in quantity have health benefits in moderation - even good old H2O!
Another issue is the concept of "pudding tummy" leading into winter - our instinct tells us that fruit won't be on the menu: consume and store sugar for winter; but sweet sugary foods are available, so we simply eat what we have..... sweet stuff.
Fruit is forgotten, we eat cake etc as though we are driven to it, but we have simply misinterpreted the signs, leading to poor nutrition and obesity, poor health etc.

This concept guides how I manage my land: encourage all things in moderation, rather than fields of pasture which lack the diversity my livestock require to be properly healthy.

Many threads on here I believe are symptomatic of farmers following the "crisps chocolate and medicine" approach to livestock nutrition... weeds are simply categorised as "a nuisance, to be disposed of" rather than clues, or mineral pumps, to be embraced and utilised.
"Maybe I like the misery"

Hence, why something as simple as breeding and finishing livestock, becomes a costly business: taking the nature out of nature.

 

[Kiwi Pete]

In relation more to the OP, many traits we may have condidered "heritable" "genetic" or, "learned" behaviour - these may, in fact be epigenetic factors.

By this, I am meaning "governed by the microbes" not the genes, necessariy.
Take an example of human twins, immediately after birth these sterile newborns are each taken by separate nurses to be cleaned up and 'processed' while mum recovers/awakes from anasthesia... it is their microbes which are first to colonise the new babies and in many respects this then influences the life of the children - as adults one may be quite obese, the other quite slender; or one healthy, the other not-so-much - and this is the reason, a different flora sends different cues and many other factors are purely governed by what we have in us- genetics are only a part of what is in us.

A ruminant, has an even simpler life - so it is quite feasible to me that this third factor has even more influence in their lives especially in relation to their choices (which are quite limited, on many landscapes) that they get to make.
But, the same selection pressures that we as farmers make - we haven't really had or known how to influence the microbiome because we simply likely haven't been told about the way things really work - and I'm fortunate in that respect, because my parents did.

So it is possible that if we take stock that eat these noxious substances due to ignorance, (and they don't die) then their offspring will already contain what it takes to do the same. Whether it is due to basic deficiency in the diet, boredom, or competition; there always seem to be some who do and some who do fine on boring old grass.

The NZ landscape and environment is much more natural in many respects as it is much newer - which is possibly a factor in why our stock are very productive: we haven't had the time or reason to sterilise it and alter it to such a great extent?
Therefore the livestock are selected to perform on what is there, as opposed to alter the environment to suit the stock (or general appearance) and thus less intervention is needed = productivity.

My cattle slowly lose their immunity during the housed period, and then it builds up again while they are grazing - so I leave adults and youngstock together to encourage this exposure, and then they don't need a lungworm drench or a separate break of pasture - the experts would all say this is the wrong approach, and they were likely bought up on a sterilised teat too!

 

[hendrebc]

This link says educated cows eat weeds and that they learn off each other once you have trained some to eat them. I cant fond anything on how they are trained but i think that kathy voth method was to put some chopped thistles or whatever in a trough with mollases and then gradually decrease the amount of mollases you put on every day until they are eating the weeds then chop them up less and less until they are eating whole thistles. Then they should eat thistles just like they do grass.

http://www.livestockforlandscapes.com/cowmanagers.htm