TEMPORAL PATTERN OF FEEDING-BEHAVIOR OF D AIRY-COWS KEPT IN GROUPS

The present paper deals with analysing the temporal pattern of the fee ding behaviour in individual dairy cows kept under loose housing condi tions in order to find existing regularities in the sequence of the me asurable activities (duration and frequency) at the feeding rack and a t the concentrate dispenser and to derivate objectively additional par ameters for the description of feed intake. 46 German Red and Black Pi ed were observed for mean 147 days from 8th up to 200th day of lactati on. The animals were kept under two different competitive situations. The number of cows per feeding place was 2.1 respectively 1.4. All ani mals were fed roughage ad libitum. The concentrates were given accordi ng to milk yield at the concentrate dispenser. All activities at the f eeding rack and at the concentrate feeding station were monitored auto matically. The cows show a characteristic temporal pattern of feed int ake behaviour. The feed intake occurs in meals. Within these meals int ervals to the length of 37 min seperate the feeding activities. Interv als longer than 37 min seperate the different meals. This objective me al criterion (T = 37 min) is not influenced by number of lactation, br eed and level of concentrates, and it is also valid for the considered competitive situations. Splitting feeding behaviour into meals allows to include new traits into the description of feed intake.