Effect of recovery period of mixture pasture on cattle behaviour, pasture biomass production, and pasture nutritional value

This document provides the brief description of the statistical analysis for the research article entitled “Effect of recovery period of mixture pasture on cattle behaviour, pasture biomass production, and pasture nutritional value” published at Animal: An International Journal of Animal Bioscience. The study was designed to evaluate three different recovery periods of mixed grasses on the grazing behaviour of heifers, as well as herbage selectivity, herbage yield and nutritional value, in vitro degradability, and CH₄ production. The three pasture recovery periods (RP) of 24, 35 and 46 days were evaluated in six blocks using a randomized block design. At each predetermined recovery period, samples of the pasture were taken before the animals were allowed to graze using the square method. Right after collecting the pasture samples, a group, out of three, of six heifers accessed the pasture during four consecutive hours for grazing simulation and behavioural observations. The three groups of heifers were scheduled to be used in accordance with a systematic distribution and the pre-determined RP. The groups went through all the blocks according to the RP and the 3x3 double Latin Square design. A sample scan from each animal was taken every 10 min for behavioural observations and grazing simulations was taken through the hand-plucking technique. The bite rate of each animal was also measured five times each hour for 30 seconds each, and then one value per group was calculated. Statistical analyses were performed in R Core Team (2018). Additional information is provided in the paper “Effect of recovery period of mixture pasture on cattle behaviour, pasture biomass production, and pasture nutritional value”.