The Steady State Distribution of Animals in Short Duration Grazing

Abstract

This note addresses the following hitherto unstudied question in rangeland management: What is the steady state distribution of livestock animals for rangelands that are managed using short duration grazing? We use the theory of alternating renewal processes to answer this question and our answer has two desirable features. First, we do not assume a specific functional form for the cumulative distribution function of the amount of time that the animals spend in the various paddocks. Second, we permit the amount of time spent by the animals in distinct paddocks to be represented by dissimilar cumulative distribution functions.