The Influence of Forage Combination Maize Grain – Fodder Beet on Feeding Behaviour Duration for Intensively Farmed Coypu (Nutria)

Abstract

Knowing the behaviour of one species, with interest in animal husbandry science represent a compulsory necessity for the development and improvement of the breeding and exploiting technology for this species. The studies on coypus behaviour are applied in the development of knowledge regarding ethology, coypu breeding technology, animal welfare and, at the moment, this present great importance for animal protection. The biological material studied was consisted of adult coypus, belonging to the variety Golden Standard. The supervised indices were: feeding behaviour duration if coypus are fed with maize grain and fodder beet according to gender and time slot, the duration of one feeding sequence according to forage consumed, gender and time slot and the number of feeding sequences according to forage consumed, gender and time slot. For realising the purposed aim, each coypu was monitorized (video), individually, 24 hours a day. The duration of feeding behaviour when coypus are fed with maize grain and fodder beet was 4921.63±472.64 seconds for males (5.69% of the behaviour al manifestations), and for coypu females, the duration of feeding behaviour was 5450.00±297.94 seconds (6.30% of the behaviour al manifestations). The most intense manifestations of the feeding behaviour occurred in the time slot 08:00-14:00, and the lowest intensity of the feeding behaviour manifestations occurred in the time slot 02:00-08:00. The average total number of males feeding sequences if coypus are fed with maize grain and fodder beet was 51.63 ± 5.54 sequences and the average total number of females feeding sequences was 56.38 ± 2.48 sequences.