Ingestive behavior of lactating cows fed sugarcane and crude glycerin levels on the diet

Abstract

The crude glycerin used as feed for ruminants has drawn attention of the researchers for dealing with environmental aspects. Considering current legislation did not establish how to treat this product, this is a low cost alternative of great amount of a residue of the biodiesel production. In this study we evaluated different crude glycerin levels on ingestive behavior which were studied as the diet of lactating cows fed with sugarcane. The glycerin levels were 0, 4, 8 and 12% of the dry matter; the diet was balanced to contain enough nutrients for the maintenance and milk production of 15 kg.dia-1. Sixteen (16) crossbred Holstein x Zebu cows were distributed into four 4x4 Latin Squares. The animals were submitted to observation of 24 hours every five minutes to evaluate ingestive behavior. The observation of the activities was recorded. The animal´s behavior was visually determined with five minutes of intervals to determine the times spent in idle, feeding, rumination, and were calculated patterns of feeding and rumination. The addition of glycerin to the diet did not affect the ingestive behavior parameter in lactating cows fed sugarcane, might be explained by the similarity in NDF content of diets, and up to 12% may be added of the diet’s dry matter.

Keywords

• Feeding; Rumination; Idleness; Time