Some Sheep Love Leafy Spurge

WASHINGTON - Jan 21/04 - SNS -- Some sheep provide a powerful, natural means of controlling leafy spurge, an aggressive perennial that has infested more than 5 million acres of U.S. rangeland, according to Agricultural Research Service scientists.

ARS animal geneticist Brent W. Woodward and rangeland scientist Steven S. Seefeldt, at the agency's U.S. Sheep Experiment Station in Dubois, Idaho, have teamed together to determine why some sheep seem to have a strong preference for leafy spurge. Is this taste for the plant--with its sticky, milky sap--in the animals' genes, or is the dietary inclination something that individual sheep learn through observation?

It's an important question to answer, because leafy spurge's spread across western rangelands has greatly reduced plant diversity and productivity.

While cattle and horses generally avoid leafy spurge, some sheep will graze on it. Hoping to take advantage of this tendency, the ARS scientists have recently initiated studies to investigate those sheep's apparent appetite for leafy spurge and other plants with similar chemical profiles.

The subscriber version of the article is available by Clicking here