Ingestive behaviour of sheep fed with ammoniated or non-ammoniated elephantgrass silage and agro industrial by-products

The effects of feeding elephantgrass silage ammoniated or not with urea (5% DM basis) and the concentrate replacement (corn and soybean meal) by cocoa meal (CM) or palm cake (PC) on the ingestive behaviour of 18 Santa Ines non-castrated male sheep averaging 22.62 kg of initial body weight were studied. The animals were allotted to individual pensas a completely randomized design with six treatments, two roughages (elephantgrass silage ammoniated with urea or not) and three concentrate replacement level with by cocoa meal or palm cake (0% CM and PC, 40% CM and 40% PC), with 60:40 roughage:concentrate proportion. The experimental period lasted 78 days (15 days for diet adaptation). The animals were observed every five minutes, during two-24 hour/day periods, at the end of the experimental period. In each observation period, the following variables were measured: time spent eating, time spent ruminating, time spent in idle, and number and time of ruminating chews per ruminated bolus. There was no significant difference between eating, ruminating and idle times. The elephantgrass ammoniated and the inclusion of cocoa meal in the concentrate increased the rumination efficiency, however, the majority of the evaluated ingestive behaviour parameters were not influenced by the treatments.