Review of scientific and technical bibliography on the use of Opuntia spp. as forage and its animal validation

Abstract

Several studies have shown the remarkable properties of Opuntia spp., a largely distributed species in the world. It has been used as an edible resource, especially in periods of food shortage, and also as livestock food in arid lands. This review aimed at identifying current literature related to Opuntia spp. as forage and its validation through experiences with domestic and other animals. The literature review was carried out October 3, 2014 using the Scopus database. From 5,723 documents, 98 of them were selected, all of those which involved experiences with animals both in housing conditions and in extensive grazing. The following items were analyzed: publication year, document type, source title, author affiliation and country, source type, language, animal species used in the experiences and a particular analysis of the publications in the Journal of the Professional Association for Cactus Development according to Scopus. It was detected that Scopus omitted some documents in the review, and there were few contributions regarding experiences that include cactus as part of animal diets.