Comportamento ingestivo de ovinos e qualidade da pastagem de Centeio Temprano em diferentes alturas de dossel forrageiro.

Abstract

The use of rye in sheep nutrition is unknown, especially with regard to the acceptability of the animals. The objective was to evaluate the influence of the height of the rye pasture on the digestive behavior of sheep and on the chemical quality. The evaluation of ingestive behavior was carried out between 08:00 and 18:00, with different forage canopy heights, 20 cm, 15 cm and 10 cm. The experimental design was completely randomized, and for the bromatology evaluations with ten repetitions of each (collections inside the paddock) and for the ingestive behavior evaluations with 6 repetitions of each moment (3 animals in two consecutive evaluations). The ingestive behavior results converted into percentage means and the bromatology results expressed according to the analysis in percentages. Both were submitted to analysis of variance and means compared by the T test (5%) using the Agroestat® program. The ingestive behaviors of rumination, walking, water intake, physiological needs and staying in the shade were not significantly influenced (p>0.05) by forage canopy height, however, grazing and idle behaviors were significantly influenced (p<0 .05) by the height of the forage canopy. The average percentage levels of NDF in the pasture were not significantly influenced (p>0.05) by the collection period, with the overall average being 66.2% ± 2.7%. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]