THE EFFECT OF A GRADUAL INCREASE OR DECREASE OF DAILY HAY INTAKE ON EATING AND RUMINATING BEHAVIOUR IN SHEEP

In the present experiment, the relationship between rumination and the amount of roughage eaten by sheep was investigated in detail. Daily time spent eating was obviously changed along with an increase or decrease in daily hay intake. Daily time spent ruminating and daily number of boli regurgitated was also linearly increased or decreased with an increase or decrease of daily hay intake, and there were regression lines between daily amount of hay eaten and daily ruminating time or daily number of boli with statistical significant coefficients. Cyclic rate (total rumination time(s)/number of boli regurgitated) and daily number of rumination periods did not change in an outline along with the changes in daily hay intake. From these results, it can be suggested that daily dry matter intake by sheep could be presumed by measuring daily time spent ruminating when they were fed only roughage feed.