SYNCHRONIZATION OF INGESTIVE BEHAVIOR BY GRAZING DAIRY-COWS

The synchronization of eating, ruminating and idling activity by lacta ting dairy cows glazing a perennial ryegrass-white clover sward was st udied. Synchronization was defined as the number of pairs of cotes eng aged in a particular activity as a proportion of the total possible nu mber of pairs and was compared with random expectation using a kappa s tatistic. All three activities were significantly more synchronized th an random expectation. This suggests that wherever possible individual cows should not be treated as replicates in grazing experiments.