Comportamento de pastejo e ingestivo de equinos em sistema silvipastoril

Abstract

Animal breeding systems have been evaluated aiming welfare. Welfare can be defined as how the animal cope with the environment that it is inserted in. Within available breeding systems, silvopastoral system is fitted as a suitable system for breeding animals, including horses, because it allies pasture availability with shading provided by the trees, and besides, it provides a sustainable breeding system to the breeder. Horse behavior was evaluated in a silvopastoral system, compared with a pasture system with direct solar incidence. Six horses were used, and observations of leisure time and pasturing at each ten minutes, the time spent for 20 bites (bite rate) was counted at each 2 hours, and the access to the water trough as counted independently, every time the horse would go for it. Observations were recorded during the solar incidence from 08am until 06pm, in two periods of two consecutive days. There was no difference for leisure time, pasturing and bite rate. However, the access to water was different, thus the animals from the pasture system with direct solar incidence searched for the water source more frequently.