Comportamento ingestivo de ovinos em gramíneas tropicais

The aim of this review was to discuss the most important factors that affect the feeding behavior of sheep grazing tropical grasses. Know the habits of these animals is important to perform the appropriate management to their needs, respecting their welfare and increasing the productive indexes. Sheep graze basically during the day, intake approximately 2-5% of their body weight per day, with time varying according to the feed availability and type, rarely exceeding 12 hours, because higher times affect in others activities. Rumination, an activity that requires more time after the graze, is divided into 15-20 times in the day, varying from few minutes to more of one hour, being higher at night. The forage species, due to their physical-chemical and management characteristics, influence the animal response. With low forage mass availability, sheep perform 65 bite/minute, but in a satisfactory offer, this frequency can reduce 50%. The bite area is affected by the pasture structure. With a higher proportion of leaves occurs the increase in the bite rate and weight. A low proportion of leaves reduces the bite weight, increase the bite interval and the grazing total time. The data about sheep feeding behavior in tropical grasses are still deficient, with a great divergence among authors.