Forages are grasses, legumes and other forbs grown for livestock feed. More formal definitions include:
Plants or parts of plants eaten by herbivorous livestock (cattle, sheep, goats, horses, llamas) and wildlife (deer, elk, moose, rabbits).
Edible parts of plants, other than separated grain, that provide feed for animals, directly as grazing or harvested as hay or silage for feeding. Forage plants can grow and regrow efficiently. Defoliation actually stimulates their growth.
Ruminants and other herbivores are able to digest cellulose through microbes living in their multi-compartment stomach (ruminants like cattle, sheep, and goats) or in their enlarge cecum (hind-gut fermenters like horses).
Forage Introduction Slide Set
Topics for forage-livestock systems provided below contain an introduction to the topic and extension, research, and teaching applications and associated media and personnel resources.