Continuous bite monitoring method (GPEP)

Determining herbage intake is pivotal for studies on grazing ecology. Direct observation of animals allows describing the interactions of animals with the pastoral environment along the complex grazing process. The objectives of the study were to evaluate the reliability of the continuous bite monitoring (CBM) method in determining herbage intake in grazing sheep compared to the standard double-weighing technique (DW) method during 45-min feeding bouts; evaluate the degree of agreement between the two techniques; and to test the effect of different potential sources of variation on the reliability of the CBM. The CBM method has been used to describe the intake behaviour of grazing herbivores. In this study, we evaluated a new approach to this method, i.e., whether it is a good proxy for determining the intake of grazing animals. Three experiments with grazing sheep were carried out in which we tested for different sources of variations, such as the number of observers, level of detail o...