Eating behaviour, social dominance and voluntary intake of silage in group-fed milking cattle

The relationships between eating behaviour, social dominance and voluntary intake of silage were examined in three experiments. Small groups of Friesian cattle were offered forage as a group in several different situations which caused different degrees of competition for silage. Restriction of the number of mangers available to the cows and of the amount of silage offered encouraged a marked increase in rate of eating silage. In Experiment I when the cows were changed from individual mangers to group feeding their mean eating rate of silage increased from 43 to 71 g silage dry matter min⁻¹. Results from the second experiment provided confirmation. In both experiments submissive cows increased their rate of eating to a greater extent than dominant animals. When group-fed there was no significant correlation between degree of dominance and variation between cows in voluntary intake of silage, but milk yield and live weight were often directly correlated with silage intake. In Experiment 3 cows and heifers ate similar amounts of silage per unit live weight when group-fed.