Welcome to Chinese Journal of Ecology! Today is Share:

cje

• Articles • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Grazing behavior of 4-month old Nanjiang yellow goat ram

XU Yong-feng1,2; LUO Hai-ling1,2; ZHAO Heng-bo1,2; CHEN Yu3   

  1. 1College of Animal Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100094, China;
    2National Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition, Beijing 100094, China;
    3Nanjiang Yellow Goat Breeding Institute, Nanjiang 636600, Sichuan, China
  • Received:2006-04-11 Revised:1900-01-01 Online:2007-03-15 Published:2007-03-15

Abstract: A successive observation was made on the diurnal grazing behavior of four healthy 4-month old Nanjiang yellow goat rams in summer. The rams were free grazing at daytime, and supplemented with concentrated forage at night. The results showed that the duration of their intake at daytime and night was 513.75 min, occupying 35.68% of the total duration of their activities, and that of rumination, stroll, standing, and sleeping was 289.00, 113.00, 89.75, and 361.50 min,respectively. The duration of intake, standing, excretion and stroll were longer and the frequency of fighting was more at daytime than at night, while the duration of rumination or sleeping was shorter at daytime than at night. The duration ratio of rumination to intake was 0.56:1.00, and the total number of ruminated cuds at daytime and night was 422.25. Nanjiang yellow goat was approved to be fast intake, good in tolerance, and able to bear low quality forage and various climate conditions.

Key words: Plum orchard, Arthropod community, Dynamic, Cluster analysis