Traits of feeding behaviour for the estimation of roughage intake of dairycows under loose housing condition

The present paper deals with the estimation of daily roughage intake for th e individual cow based on feeding behaviour only. Before this possible auto covariances between the serial daily measurements were analysed, the signif icance of fixed effects was demonstrated, and the repeatabilities and corre lations between cow effects and between residual effects for roughage intak e and for different traits of feeding behaviour were estimated. 46 German R ed and Black Pied were observed for on average 147 days from the 8th up to the 200th day of lactation. The animals were kept under two different compe titive situations. The number of cows per feeding place was 2.1 and 1.4 res pectively All animals were fed roughage ad libitum. Concentrates were given according to milk yield at the concentrate dispenser. All activities at th e feeding rack and at the concentrate feeding station were monitored automa tically. Environmental dependencies between the feeding activities of daily repeated measurements can be ignored. Roughage intake and intake behaviour don't di ffer between the two competitive situations. Number and stage of lactation, breed, test day, liveweight and amount of concentrates have to be taken in to account to describe the roughage intake and intake behaviour. Based on t he estimated repeatabilities and correlations the automatically monitored b ehaviour at the feeding rack and at the concentrate feeding station during one month ensure an accuracy of estimation of r(FI) = 0.67 for the roughage intake per day.