Oat and ryegrass pastures grown in intercropping systems are the most common forages used during the fall and winter in subtropical and in some temperate climate regions. Nevertheless, it must be taken into account that the way in which the different species of plants are presented to the animals may lead to consequences for the efficiency of the grazing process (Prache and Damasceno 2006). Moreover, in hetero-geneous environments, animals may reduce intake rate due to a partial preference for a specific species (Gonçalves et al. 2009).
Regarding the pasture development stage, it is known that the decrease of the leaf/stem ratio causes the animal to reduce the instantaneous herbage intake rate due to the reduction of the bite depth because of the physical barrier imposed by the stem (Benvenutti et al. 2006; Drescher et al. 2006) and/or the search for a higher food quality, in this case, leaf lamina (Soder et al. 2009). However, the dynamics of changes in temperate sward structures grown in pure stands compared to inter-cropping systems and its consequence in heifers\u27 short-term herbage intake rate (STHIR) are scarce.
The objective of this work was to assess the changes in the STHIR in pastures of oat, ryegrass and their intercrop during the growing season. The hypothesis tested was that cattle reduce the STHIR in intercropping pastures compared to pure stands, and as the grazing season progress
