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Grazing behaviour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2017

P D Penning
P D Penning*
Affiliation:
The Animal and Grassland Research Institute, Hurley, Maidenhead, Berks. SL6 SLR
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Extract

Intake of herbage by grazing animals is determined by the weight of herbage harvested per bite and the number of bites taken. A knowledge of ingestive behaviour can, therefore, play a valuable role in understanding animal responses to changes in sward conditions and management practices and thus aid the interpretation of results from grazing experiments. This paper will firstly consider briefly some methods of recording behaviour and, secondly, present some results illustrating the use of behaviour recording within a grazing experiment.

Direct observation is the most frequently used method of recording behaviour. It is, however, laborious and often carried out under unpleasant conditions; it is difficult to record activities continuously and in some cases it is not possible to directly observe a particular behaviour. These limitations have led to numerous attempts to record grazing behaviour automatically.

Type
Herbage intake
Information
Proceedings of the British Society of Animal Production (1972) , Volume 1986 , March 1986 , pp. 48
Copyright
Copyright © The British Society of Animal Production 1986

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References

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