Abstract The pastoral literature place little emphasis on the cooperative aspect of being a pastoralist. Part of the neglect stems from conflating the livestock owning unit, i.e. the household, with the herding group. Among Tibetan pastoralists, the herding group consist of people and animals from one or several households. They herd in groups because there is an optimal size of the herd concerning daily herding: too few animals and the animals disperse while too many negatively affect grazing efficiency and subsequently livestock survival during winter. The individual household also frees up members for e.g. selling or trading livestock products. Furthermore, group formation makes it possible to split herds into smaller sub-herds that consider differing needs for varying livestock species and age-categories. While herding groups can change both seasonally and annually, they are a fundamental unit for pastoral social organisation because they are concerned with daily cooperation.

中文翻译：

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牧业合作基础：藏族牧民合作团体的形成

摘要 牧民文学很少强调作为牧民的合作方面。部分忽视源于将牲畜拥有单位（即家庭）与牧群混为一谈。在藏族牧民中，牧群由一个或几个家庭的人和动物组成。他们成群结队地放牧，因为在日常放牧方面有一个最佳的畜群规模：太少的动物和动物会分散，而太多的动物会对放牧效率和随后的冬季牲畜生存产生负面影响。个体家庭还腾出成员来销售或交易牲畜产品。此外，群体形成可以将畜群分成更小的子畜群，这些子畜群考虑到不同牲畜种类和年龄类别的不同需求。