STUDY ON FEEDING AND RUMINATION BEHAVIOR IN THREE MONTHS OF AGE ROMANIAN BLACK AND WHITE CALVES

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to measure the main aspects that characterize the feeding and rumination behavior of three months old calves. During the experiments, the following feeding and rumination behavior aspects were determined: number of feeding periods, the length of feeding periods, number of ruminating periods, and the length of rumination periods. Data was computed using ANOVA/MANOVA. Results showed that calves spent feeding, on average, 182 minutes in the morning, representing 38% of that time period, 118 minutes in the afternoon, respectively 25% of the 8-hour time frame and only 69 minutes during the night (14%). Calves ruminate, on average, more during the night (138 minutes) compared with morning and afternoon (104 and 107 minutes, respectively). The length of a rumination period was between 24 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes during the night. Calves ruminated, on average, 331 minutes in the first day of the experiment, respectively 23% of the day length and 367 minutes in the second day (25.5% of the day time).

Keywords

• calves
• feeding behavior
• rumination behavior
• romanian black and white