Licury oil in concentrate feed supplement on the ingestive behavior and thermal comfort of milking cows on pasture

Abstract

The ingestive behavior and thermal comfort were used to determine the best level of licury oil as feed supplement fed to dairy cows under grazing system. The treatments were 0.0; 1.5; 3.0 and 4.5% of licury oil in the concentrate (dry matter basis). The total area of grazing was 8ha of Tanzania grass (Panicum maximum Jacq. cv. Tanzânia-1). The evaluations of ingestive behavior were done in four periods (First period 21/05 to 11/06; Second period 12/06 to 02/07; third period 03/07 to 23/07 and Forth period 24/08 to 13/08, in 2007), two consecutive days (12h per day) per period, in intervals of one hour, by visual observation. It was analyzed the grazing, rest and rumination activities. The environment was monitored during all periods by recording the air temperature, relative humidity and black globe temperature. These data were used to calculate the comfort indexes. The physiological parameters evaluated were rectal temperature and breathe frequency. The avegare time spent in grazing, rst and rumination were 71.7; 11.2 and 16.9%, respectively. The licury oil in the feed supplements did not influence the ingestive behavior and physiological parameters of dairy cows, so that oil can be used up to 4.5% in the concentrate feed to milking cows.