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The grazing behaviour and free-water intake of East African shorthorned zebu heifers at Serere, Uganda

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 March 2009

P. N. Wilson
P. N. Wilson
Affiliation:
The Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, Faculty of Agriculture, The University College of the West Indies
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Extract

1. Results are presented which refer to the behaviour of twenty young East African shorthorned zebu heifers grazing a Chloris gayana ley at Serere Experiment Station in north-east Uganda. The heifers were studied for two trial periods, each of 72 hr. duration, one during the transitional season and one during the dry season.

2. Five of the heifers were recorded individually, and the results showed a fair degree of variation in behaviour between heifers. The difference in total ruminating time between two heifers was statistically significant, but all other differences were nonsignificant.

3. The day to day variation in behaviour was very small. There was no significant difference in the time spent engaged in any major activity between the 3 days of either trial.

4. During the transitional period of the year between the wet and dry seasons, young heifers spent 8·6 hr. grazing (22·5% at night; 77·5% by day) and 7·0 hr. ruminating out of a 24 hr. period. During the dry season, the heifers spent 7·8 hr. grazing (25·2% at night; 74·8% by day) and 6·5 hr. ruminating. There were no other important differences in behaviour time between the two seasons.

5. In the transitional season the grazing was divided into three distinct periods, two during the day and one at night. In the dry season the afternoon grazing period was divided by a short resting period into two parts, making four periods in every 24 hr. An average of 2 hr. were spent night-grazing in both seasons, and this night grazing was independent of moonlight.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Agricultural Science , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , June 1961 , pp. 351 - 364
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1961

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References

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