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How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 16, 2026

How to Create Conditioned Taste Aversion for Grazing Ground Covers in Woody Crops with Small Ruminants
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Do grazing sheep use species-based categorization to select their diet?

Cécile Ginane1, Bertrand Dumont

  • 1INRA, UR1213 Herbivores, Site de Theix, F-63122 Saint-Genès-Champanelle, France. cecile.ginane@clermont.inra.fr

Behavioural Processes
|February 9, 2010
PubMed
Summary

Sheep categorize food by species, not height. This dietary categorization helps herbivores make foraging choices efficiently in varied environments, demonstrating a species-based selection strategy.

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Area of Science:

  • Animal behavior
  • Foraging ecology
  • Herbivore diet selection

Background:

  • Herbivores face complex environments with diverse food options.
  • Efficient diet selection requires effective food item categorization.
  • Understanding categorization strategies informs foraging behavior research.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate sheep's ability to categorize food items based on species and sward height.
  • To determine if sheep generalize learned aversions to food items.
  • To assess the role of species versus physical characteristics in sheep's dietary categorization.

Main Methods:

  • Sheep (ewes) were presented with ryegrass (Rg) and fescue (Fe) in tall (T) and short (S) swards.
  • Preference testing involved binary choices between different grass types and heights.
  • Aversive conditioning was applied against tall ryegrass (RgT) to assess generalization.

Main Results:

  • Sheep decreased preference for short ryegrass (RgS) after conditioning against tall ryegrass (RgT).
  • Sheep did not change preference between tall and short fescue, indicating aversion did not generalize to height.
  • Choices between species at the same height were similar, supporting species-based categorization.

Conclusions:

  • Sheep utilize species-based categorization for diet selection, an open-ended strategy.
  • Sward height is not used by sheep to define food categories, despite its importance in diet selection.
  • Findings highlight the cognitive mechanisms underlying herbivore foraging decisions.