Posição social e preferência alimentar de ovelhas Morada Nova em confinamento

Abstract

In intensive sheep production systems, the organization of groups is carried out with the purpose to meet the nutritional requirements of individuals and when a resource is not enough to meet all the members of a particular group, the established hierarchical order allows certain individuals have access priority. Thus, this study aimed to verify the influence of the availability of space at the feeder, position and type of forage on food preference and dominance expression of Morada Nova sheep kept in confinement. We used 36 empty ewes Morada Nova distributed in a completely randomized design in a 3x2 factorial arrangement, three different densities of competition areas trough (0.15, 0.20 and 0.35 m / animal) and two types bulky (elephant grass silage and elephant grass hay) as treatments. The pecking order in each group was determined by feeding motivation test in pairs. The comments were of a type of focal animal sampling with the indirect observation method, using of video cameras (Hero3 GoPro® model) over a period of three continuous hours after delivery of the diet. The daily dry matter intake per animal varied to kind of bulky and animal density in the feeder line. The sheep spent more time feeding silage compared to hay, but there was no difference in the function of stocking density on feeding time in the feeder line. Aggressive behaviors numbers varied depending on the thickness and density was no interaction and social position. The number of aggressive behaviors was high when the sheep were given hay for high density and promoted by high social position animals. The density of 0.15 m / animal in the feeder line allows access to food to all sheep independent of the type of roughage used, but the welfare of animals is affected when offered hay, due to the increase in the level of agonistic interactions. Hay promoted greater food motivation to animals. The social position of Morada Nova sheep is determining when there are limited resources.