Cattle may improve their feeding efficiency by altering their ingestive behaviour in response to changes in the quality of their pastoral environments. To test this hypothesis, an experiment was conducted in a native ...Cattle may improve their feeding efficiency by altering their ingestive behaviour in response to changes in the quality of their pastoral environments. To test this hypothesis, an experiment was conducted in a native pasture that has been managed in continuous stocking at different daily forage allowances （4%, 8%, 12%, and 16% of live weight） for twenty two years thus creating different pastoral environments. For the current experiment, the animals were allocated to their respective experimental units on April 27, 2007. Two experiments were conducted; one was performed at the end of winter （experiment 1）, and the other was undertaken at the end of spring （experiment 2）. Four tester animals were observed per experimental unit （3-5 ha each）. The animals increased their daily grazing time when forage allowance decreased. Most of this increased time was devoted to harvesting, whereas searching was reduced to a few minutes per day. Under conditions of ideal range of forage allowance （between 12% and 14%）, the grazing time was reduced, and the search activity increased. These results suggest that the monitoring of indicators of ingestive behaviour can be used to determine the attributes of forage resources.展开更多
文摘Cattle may improve their feeding efficiency by altering their ingestive behaviour in response to changes in the quality of their pastoral environments. To test this hypothesis, an experiment was conducted in a native pasture that has been managed in continuous stocking at different daily forage allowances （4%, 8%, 12%, and 16% of live weight） for twenty two years thus creating different pastoral environments. For the current experiment, the animals were allocated to their respective experimental units on April 27, 2007. Two experiments were conducted; one was performed at the end of winter （experiment 1）, and the other was undertaken at the end of spring （experiment 2）. Four tester animals were observed per experimental unit （3-5 ha each）. The animals increased their daily grazing time when forage allowance decreased. Most of this increased time was devoted to harvesting, whereas searching was reduced to a few minutes per day. Under conditions of ideal range of forage allowance （between 12% and 14%）, the grazing time was reduced, and the search activity increased. These results suggest that the monitoring of indicators of ingestive behaviour can be used to determine the attributes of forage resources.
