Evaluation of dairy cows intake behavior grazing Brachiaria brizantha fed different levels of concentrate at diet

• Main Authors: Fabrício Bacelar Lima Mendes, Fabiano Ferreira da Silva, Robério Rodrigues Silva, Gleidson Giordano Pinto de Carvalho, Elisangela Oliveira Cardoso, Aires Lima Rocha Neto, Julinessa Silva Oliveira, Lucas Teixeira Costa, Hermógenes Almeida de Santana Júnior, Alyson Andrade Pinheiro
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Estadual de Londrina 2013-12-01
• Series: Semina: Ciências Agrárias
• Subjects: Cattle; Intake; Grazing; Production; Ruminant.
• Online Access: http://www.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/semagrarias/editor/submission/11999

The objective with this research was to evaluate the dairy cows intake behavior grazing Brachiaria brizantha submitted to different levels of concentrate supplementation in the diet. Used 16 lactating cows ½ Holstein x ½ Zebu, with an average of 80 ±10.14 days of lactation and body weight of 454.7 ± 54.51 kg. The animals were distributed in four treatments, using a 4x4 Latin square. The evaluation of behavior was done every ten minutes, during 24 hours on the 16th day of period. We used analysis of variance and regression probability of 0.05. The time spent grazing, ruminating and other activities, the numbers of grazing, ruminating, of bites per day and chews per cake, the grazing times, total power and total chewing, bit rate, time to swallow; time per bolus ruminated; chewing speed and power efficiency for NDF were not altered by increased levels of concentrate. The time of trough, the trough period, the bit size, the chews time for bolus, feeding efficiency for DM, NFC, and TDN and rumination efficiency linearly increased. Periods of rumination, deglutition bits, number of rumination chews per day, decreased linearly with increasing levels of concentrate. Significant quadratic effect of concentrate level on the number of periods in other activities and over time on other activities. Supplementation with 33.8% concentrate in the diet of cows grazing not promote changes in the activity of grazing, ruminating and other activities, but increases the time of trough. The increase in concentrate diet improves the efficiencies of feeding and rumination