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Interannual and monthly variations of herbage production and nutritive value regarding grazing ruminants' needs and welfare were evaluated in three grasslands (semi-mountainous, mountainous and sub-alpine) located at different altitudes (480–900, 901–1500 and 1501–2334 m, respectively) in northern Greece during 2015–2016. Herbage biomass was collected from 30 experimental cages (10 per grassland), weighed, dried at 65 ∘C, milled and analyzed for crude protein (CP), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), acid detergent fiber (ADF), lignin, calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) content and in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD). The sub-alpine grassland was the most productive (1031 and 1231 kg DM ha-normal1) with the highest mean annual herbage CP content (93 and 87 g kg-normal1 dry matter; DM) for 2015 and 2016, respectively. CP content was sufficient to meet small ruminants' and beef cattle maintenance requirements until April and May in the semi-mountainous and mountainous grasslands, respectively, while it could cover the above requirements in the sub-alpine grassland until June and August, respectively. The herbage Ca concentration was higher than the grazing ruminants' needs, while the phosphorus concentration was insufficient. Protein and phosphorus supplementation should be provided to animals to cover their maintenance requirements during the whole period and to reach high levels of welfare. Even though grazing is considered as a welfare-friendly procedure, it is uncertain whether all the welfare principals are satisfied in extensive production systems due to variations of forage availability and nutritive value as well as the lack of infrastructure in grasslands.

The grazing activities of indigenous sheep of the greek breed »Serres« was investigated in a typical lowland, and in a mountainous pasture in northern Greece during the vegetative period (April-October) of 2008. Grazing time, resting and ruminating time, distance travel and air temperature in relation to pasturing month and altitude were examined. It was remarked significant effect (P<0.001) of the pasturing month on grazing time, and resting time of sheep. Mean grazing time was greater in the lowland (315.71 min/day ±4.57) than in the mountainous pasture (283.57 min/day ±4.79). On the contrary, the resting time and the distance travel of sheep were shorter in the lowland pasture. The resting time had significant (P<0.01) positive relationship to air temperature (r=0.777). Keywords

The Greek Thrakian sheep breed is under extinction and information about their grazing behaviour is important to both welfare and performances. The grazing behaviour of the Thrakian sheep breed was investigated in the mountainous rangelands of North-Eastern Thrace, Greece from April to October 2012. Direct observations were carried out on six female sheep for two consecutive days at each month and the time spent on grazing, resting and rumination was recorded. Also, the daily distance travel by sheep flock was recorded with a handheld Global Positioning System. Sheep travelled on average 4.5 km/day and they walked their shortest distances during the summer months (July and August). Sheep spent 324.3 min/day (64.2 % of their grazing activities) on feeding while they devoted less time (P<0.05) to resting and ruminating (134.4 and 46.4 min/day, respectively). The higher values of resting and ruminating were recorded during summer (163.2 min/day and 54.2 min/day, respectively). Time spent on grazing by sheep had significant (P<0.05) negative relationship to air temperature (r=−0 .966) while the resting and ruminating time had a positive one (r=0.935; P<0.01 and r=0.815; P<0.05, respectively).