Eating behaviour of dairy cows offered fresh or ensiled white clover, red clover and ryegrass to choose from or in a mixture

Abstract Two experiments with 24 lactating cows each were conducted in a group housing system to study the influence of feeding method (choice diets versus mixed diets) and forage species (white clover, red clover, ryegrass) both in fresh (experiment 1) and in ensiled form (experiment 2) in order to gain insight on how cows adjust their eating behaviour in order to optimize intake under the different feeding managements. Each experiment consisted of four dietary treatments, whereof two were mixed diets of clover (white or red clover) and ryegrass (0.4:0.6, on dry matter basis), and two were choice diets with cows having the choice among clover (white or red clover) and ryegrass. With the fresh forages, giving the choice compared to offering mixed diets resulted in a higher average daily number of meals (10.9 versus 8.8, P P P P