Sheep recognize chewing easiness of grass leaves prior to prehension through sensing bending strength

摘要

Grazing animals choose plant parts which can be eaten quickly with ease.Grazing animals usually remove only uppermost parts of plants because of different resistances to defoliation imposed by the physical structure of plant tissue.The objective of this study is to clarify the effect of bending and shearing strengths of orchardgrass leaves on foraging behavior and analyze biting forces and impulse created by sheep.