Abstract

Dairy cows were offered choices of patches of vegetation (0.8m2) on a perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne L.) sward providing combinations of five levels of sward height (8.9 - 19.6 cm) and three levels of herbage bulk density (1.3 - 1.6 mg DM/cm3) in linear sequence. Four cows were used, each of which grazed two out of a balanced set of eight sequences, each sequence being replicated three times in a set of 27 patches in linear sequence. Animal responses were monitored in terms of grazing time and number of bites per patch. Bite number per patch increased from zero to 54 (SEM

WM, Griffiths, J Hodgson, CW Holmes, and GC Arnold

Proceedings of the New Zealand Society of Animal Production, Volume 56, , 122-124, 1996