Comportamento ingestivo de equinos em pastagem de Cynodon sp

Abstract

With the world's third largest herd Brazil has stood out in the creation of horses, in a market worth millions of dollars every year and generates a very large number of direct and indirect jobs. Thinking about it we must know the needs of these animals, especially in their feeding behavior, thus being able to create strategies so that it can achieve the maximum performance from them. Because they forage quality and a good digestibility grasses of Cynodon has been widely used for these animals. The aim was to observe and characterize the action and performance of horses under free intake conditions in Cynodon pasture. The work was conducted at the Federal Technological University of Paraná (UTFPR) - Campus Dois Vizinhos in the Equine industry from March 2015 to April 2015. The experimental area consisted of 9000m², in which Tifton 85 cultivars were implanted, Jiggs and grass Cowboy. Four animals were used without defined breeds weighing approximately 450 kg per. Evaluated the variables: dry matter and crude protein in addition to animal behavior. The measurements of the feeding behavior of the animals were carried out by means of direct observations every 10 minutes over a period of 12 hours, for 3 consecutive days. Despite all be used for horses, to cultivate Jiggs was effectively developed for this category of animal, by an American farmer who wanted to improve grazing its service troops. However, because the conditions of observation and data collection occurred during the months of March and April, during which, tropical forages are in reproductive period, it showed the highest proportion of dry matter. The cultivar in which animals remained more grazing was the Tifton 85 grass followed by Cowboy and Jiggs.