The ingestion rate (I) was calculated as the difference between the delivered feed and that which remained 2 h after being offered to the animals, and corrected by the percentage of leached nutrients. The leaching percentage of the pastes were measured using the shaking method (Obaldo et al., 2002). For this, 10 samples of 2 g of each diet were placed in 250-mL flasks placed in a horizontal shaker for 2 h. After that time, all the water was passed through a paper filter to separate the remaining paste from the leached water. The leached and original 10 feed samples of each diet were dried in a convection oven at 60 °C for 48 h until constant weight, and then cooled in a desiccator. Dried feed samples were weighed and analysed for dry matter retention. Ingestion rate was calculated according to the following equation: