Abstract
1) Three methods of measuring palatability of herbage plants, i) by amount of herbage intake, ii) by time of herbage intake and iii) by number of animals attracted, were compared with each other, using 10 steers under the three treatments replicated twice with 8 combinations of 4 grasses and 2 growing stages. 2) Because of high correlation among the three methods, it was presumed that they could be adopted with similar reliability. From theoreticl view point, the herbage intake method has been recognized as the best one. But actually its measuring procedure is comparatively troublesome and liabl to sampling errors. Therefore in short time measurment of 1 hour or less like these experiments, the grazing time method or animal number method would be recommended. 3) In order to check the effect of herd behaviour on selective forage intake, it was compared with individual behaviour by tethered grazing method. Because of the similar tendencies of both behaviours, it was presumed that they would be inter-changeble in measuring palatability. The high correlation between both measuring methods of grazing time and herbage intake was also confirmed by tethering.
