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Table 2 Effect of floor type on the percentage occurrences of lying, eating, drinking, head butting, mounting, licking and allo-grooming over five 3-day sampling periods

From: Effect of floor type on the performance, physiological and behavioural responses of finishing beef steers

Behaviour

Slats

Mat 1

Mat 2

Wood-chip

Lying

49.6a ± 0.38

51.3b ± 0.39

51.0b ± 0.38

49.5a ± 0.39

Eating

10.3b ± 0.19

10.3b ± 0.20

10.5b ± 0.20

11.2a ± 0.20

Drinking

0.31 ± 0.02

0.30 ± 0.03

0.32 ± 0.03

0.32 ± 0.03

Head butting

0.26a ± 0.02

0.36b ± 0.02

0.32a,b ± 0.02

0.34b ± 0.02

Mounting

0.10a,c ± 0.01

0.05b ± 0.01

0.12c ± 0.01

0.07a,b ± 0.01

Licking another animal (allogrooming)

2.12a,b ± 0.06

1.98a ± 0.06

2.25b ± 0.06

2.0a ± 0.06

Grooming (self grooming)

2.80a,c ± 0.06

2.57b ± 0.07

2.85c ± 0.07

2.37d ± 0.07

  1. The values are expressed as Lsmeans (±SEM) over the five sampling periods
  2. 5 three-day sampling periods (1–5) (period 1, days 2, 3, 4; period 2, days 25, 28, 29; period 3, days 42, 43, 44; period 4, days 56, 57, 58 and period 5, days 129, 130 and 133) for steers housed on bare concrete slats
  3. a,b,c,dWithin a row, means having different superscript letters indicate significant differences (P < 0.05)