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Hokkaido native horses, which were established over about two centuries on Hokkaido island located in the northern part of Japan, is one of the kinds of Japanese horses. They have been believed to have high resistance to cold as well as outstanding ability to digest low quality roughage. Therefor, they have been kept outdoors all year round, including woodland pasture during winter, and graze on sasa growing under trees. Japanese shorthorn is one of the kinds of Japanese cattle “Wagyu”. They have been believed to have considerable aptitude for grazing and kept in the roughage main constituent including grazing pasture from spring to autumn. I’m studying for achieving sustainable horse and beef-cattle production system by the pasturage main constituent including woodland. My research topics are clarifying the nutritional and behavioral characteristics of grazing horses and cattle to perform effective animal production by using grazing system. |
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My lab is located within Shizunai Livestock Farm, which is situated on a hillside in the Hidaka Mountains and keeps about 150 beef cattle (Japanese shorthorn) and 100 horses (Hokkaido native horses, Dosanko) on the area of 470ha including woodland of 330ha. I want to study with the students who are interested in various fields such as plants, trees, the forest, nature, the wild animals as well as domestic animals. Let’s join us in a field of the Nature!
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- Tanabe T, Mitani T, Ueda K, Matsui A, Kawai M. The changes of grazing behavior and locomotion activity per day for stocked Thoroughbred foals with growth. Animal Behaviour and Management, 56(2) in press
- Amano T, Tozaki T, Takasu M, Onogi A, Yamada F, Kawai M, Ueda J. Changes of sires in a breeding farm enables maintenance of DNA-level genetic variation in a produced herd of Hokkaido native horses. Animal Science Journal, 91(1), e13318 (2019)
- Baba C, Kawai M, Takimoto-Inose A. Are horses (Equus caballus) sensitive to human emotional cues? Animals, 9, 630 (2019)
- Amano T, Onogi A, Yamada F, Kawai M, Shirai K, Ueda J. Genome-wide association mapping and examination of possible maternal effect for the pace trait of horses. Animal Genetics, 49: 461-463 (2018)
- Kawashima C, Watanabe K, Meza FR, Matsui M, Kawai M, Nakamura T, Acosta AT. Body condition score and reproductive performance of dairy cows in eastern region of Paraguay. Conpendio de Ciencias Veterinarias, 8(1), 16-21 (2018)
- Sato F, Tanabe T, Murase H, Tominari M, Kawai M. Application of a wearable GPS unit for examining interindividual distance in a herd of Thoroughbred dams and foals. Hournal of Equine Science, 28(1), 13-17 (2017)
- Kawai M, Tanabe T. Forage utilization of horses on grazing pasture. Proceedings of the 6th Korea-China-Japan Grassland Conference, 41-46 (2016)
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