The Effect of Previous Experience of Animals on Subsequent Preference in a Palatability Grazing Trial

Abstract

Previous experience of test animals has been mentioned as a factor which may affect grazing preference of cattle. Palatability trials have usually been conducted without allowing animals to previously graze individual forage species under evaluation. A cafeteria trial was designed to study the effect of previous grazing of individual species in the palatability ranking of six tropical legumes. Results indicated that short-term previous experience of the test animals affected the magnitude of the palatability index of the most palatable legume on the first days of the trial, but did not affect the overall palatability ranking of species. Therefore, it would not seem necessary to include adjustment plots with individual forage species in cafeteria trials when the main objective is to rank species by palatability