brosity was more rapidly ingested t

brosity was more rapidly ingested than the LO diet, as
evidenced by the differences in the duration of eating
and by the difference in the rate of intake for the first
eating bout. Such differences related to the fibrosity
of the diet have already been observed in cattle a long
time ago (Bailey, 1961). Moreover, the first eating bout
was shown to stop earlier with the HI diet than with
the LO diet. An explanation might be that with the HI
diet, a more rapid increase in osmotic pressure in the
rumen occurred following the larger intake of rapidly
degradable matter than with the LO diet. This higher
rise in osmolality of ruminal fluid might have limited
feed intake (Carter and Grovum, 1990). One consequence
of this regulation was a lower percentage of the
total DMI eaten during this first eating bout with the
HI diet compared with the LO diet. It seemed as if the
goats had stopped eating to prevent themselves from
a too-serious SARA. The increase in the percentage of
concentrate in the diet decreased the eating and ruminating
durations expressed either on a daily basis or on
a DM basis, in agreement with the literature (Santini
et al., 1992; Abijaoudé et al., 2000; Carvalho et al.,
2006). High between-animal variability was observed
in feeding behavior, which agrees with data obtained
in cattle (Vasilatos and Wangsness, 1980; Deswysen et
al., 1987; Heinrichs and Conrad, 1987). The number
of boluses is seldom measured continuously in experiments,
especially with diets containing concentrates.
Nevertheless, McLeod and Smith (1989) compared in
cattle several forages differing in their fiber content
and did not find any difference between forages for
the mean rate at which boluses were regurgitated, as
in our trial. Fujihara and Nakao (1982) found similar
results in sheep given either hay or broad bean silage.
In both experiments, animals spent more time eating
and ruminating and regurgitated more boluses when
the fibrosity increased in the diet. The increase in the
number of boluses per kilogram of DMI observed in our