Eating behaviour of lactating cows fed with different preserved forages
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5433/1679-0359.2004v25n2p159Keywords:
Eating behavior, Rumination chewing, Silage.Abstract
The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of different forages preserved in silage form on eating behavior (feeding, rumination and leisure). Twelve Holstein lactating cows with a average 30 kg milk production were used. They were fed with three experimental diets composed by a combination of forages plus concentrate: (T1) 50 % of corn silage + 25 % of ryegrass silage + 25% of barley silage, (T2) 50 % of ryegrass silage +25 % of corn silage +25 % of barley silage and (T3) 50 % of barley silage +25% of corn silage + 25% of ryegrass silage. A latin square design 3 x 3 with extra period in a change over arrangement was used. Animals were submitted to eating behavior evaluation by visual observation every 14 days, during two consecutive days in four experimental periods. In the first day, the average number of chewing per ruminal bolus and the average time spending in the chewing per ruminal bolus were evaluated during three periods of two hours (8 - 10 hours; 14 - 16 hours; and 18 - 20 hours). In the second day, the eating behavior was visually determined during 24 hours with five minutes intervals. These data were used for to determine the eating and rumination spending time. There was not difference of experimental diets on spending time in feeding and rumination (minutes/day), eating efficiency and rumination (gDM/h and gNDF/h). Number of meals/day and number of rumination periods did not showed effect among different diets. It was observed 8.31 meals/day (in average), 36.20 minutes for spending time (in average), and 12.67 rumination periods/day. The eating behavior of the lactating cows was not influenced by the combination of the forages sources in the diets.
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Copyright (c) 2004 Elzânia Sales Pereira, Alex Martins Varela de Arruda, Ivone Yurika Mizubuti, Augusto César de Queiroz, Elaine Barbosa Muniz, Júlio César Barreto, Fernanda Granzotto, Andréa Pereira Pinto, Bruno Mazzer de Oliveira Ramos
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