Behavioral Observations on Introduced Hu Sheep in Henan Province,China

Behavioral Observations on Introduced Hu Sheep in Henan Province,China

Hu Sheep is a local sheep breed in the plain of Taihu,China.Due to the natural conditions in Taihu and human domestication,Hu Sheep is gradually featured with high adaptability,fast growth rate,early maturity and high productivity,which make them to be a unique and rare breed of sheep.In the present study,an experiment was conducted by means of instantaneous scan sampling,focal animal sampling and all-occurrence sampling to learn about Hu Sheep's behavior and activity pattern under certain feeding management and ecological condition.The result showed that the activity time budgets for several behaviors were different between rams and ewes,with respect to feeding (rams 30.60％ vs.ewes 33.23％),ruminating (33.43％ vs.35.30％);sleeping (19.92％ vs.13.69％),standing (4.13％ vs.5.26％),moving (8.10％ vs.7.46％),and other behaviors (3.86％ vs.5.06％).A circadian activity rhythm was shown in some behaviors;e.g.,total feeding time was greater in the daytime than at night,whereas resting time showed the opposite tendency.Moving mostly occurred in the daytime,and ruminating mainly occurred at night.Additionally,feeding activity occurred 32.22 times per day in rams and 31.73 times per day in ewes,whereas ruminating activity after feeding occurred 19.83 times per day in rams and 24.34 times per day in ewes.For each food bolus,the average ruminating time was 51.22 s in rams and 49.52 s in ewes,with 68.22 bouts of rumination per day in rams and 57.35 bouts of rumination in ewes.By conducting the experiment,we studied and grasped the local Hu Sheep's main behavior and regularity which are of great significance on improving the feeding management and reducing diseases.