Description

Abstract: Understanding nutritional status of grazing animals is a critical step in improving livestock productivity in Mongolia. Utilization of near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) on feces provides adequate assessment of diet quality, yet initially requires substantial laboratory infrastructure and capacity. The application of portable NIRS in remote settings such as those found in Mongolia shows promise as both a research and management tool, as it allows for rapid assessment of diet quality in the field. Until Mongolian specific calibrations are developed, application of fecal NIRS there is dependent on similarities in fecal chemistry between native and US animals. Fecal chemistry of Mongolian cattle and yak were highly analogous to US cattle, whereas Mongolian sheep and goats exhibited greater differences in fecal chemistry as compared to their US counterparts than did the larger ruminants. Due to these similarities, diet quality from Mongolian ruminant fecal samples can be determined using current US calibrations until either Mongolian specific or Mongolian enhanced calibrations are developed. Fecal NIRS can also be used to discriminate between pairs of sympatric species (i.e. cattle and yak, sheep and goat, horse and khulan). Further development of this discriminant technique will facilitate more efficient collection of samples (by non-livestock oriented individuals), thus expediting nutritional monitoring in large landscapes. Timely assessment of diet quality via fecal NIRS will augment the forage quantity measurements provided by the Gobi Forage project and provide a two-pronged decision support package for pastoralists and agriculture professionals. Portable NIRS yielded results comparable to static NIRS and can thus be used in field conditions. This “take the lab to the sample” approach with portable NIRS can make near-real time, location specific nutritional monitoring available to the herders of Mongolia’s vast grazinglands.