Analysis on the composition of wild feed plants in Weining karst area, Guizhou Province

The database of the name and the palatability level of each wild feeding plants from available literatures, field investigation, farmer interviews and expert advices in Weining County, Guizhou Province were built. The herbaceous and woody life forms and their feeding values were analyzed. The differences of feeding organ and palatability level of each species in this area, and the wild feed plants were divided into excellent, good, medium and bad levels. The results indicated that the wild feeing plants included 55 families, 77 generas and 384 species, in Weining County, mainly from Gramineae, Leguminosae, Asteraceae, Rosaceae, Cyperaceae and other 10 families. Herbaceous and woody species respectively accounted for 76% and 24% of the total plants, and the woody/vine plants mainly distributed in Leguminosae (26 species) and Rosaceae (23 species). The feeding values of most of species of Gramineae, Leguminosae and Cyperaceae were high. Grazing animal behavior, feeding rate and ration composition of cattle, sheep and goats were different. It was pointed out that the forage shrubs with higher biological active substance could be used as the supplementary feed components or biological health care medicine additives, the mixed grazing of different livestock should be putted into grassland management practice in Weining karst area, the wild forage of medium feeding of this area could be used as the supplementary feed in winter and the utilization of natural and artificial grasslands was equivalent.