The transition period and early lactation is critical important to the health and productivity of dairy cows. In this period more than 80% of the total health disorders occur. In the most cases this disorders are metabolic related and caused by a negative energy balance. To get information about arising problems in an early stage, sensor based animal monitoring systems are used. These systems analyse among others characteristics of animal behaviour. Therefore it is necessary to analyse the relations between behaviour patterns and physiological parameters. In this context our research was directed on the relationships between feeding behaviour and feed intake. Data (feed intake and time spent on feeder) from 70 lactating dairy cows were collected from the 2nd to the 15th week of lactation. The monitoring was conducted by using an electronic feeding system, which was equipped with an electronic identification of each individual cow. The visits at feeder were clustered in meals based on a “meal criterion”. The effects of parity, stage of lactation and milk yield level on feeding behaviour and feed intake were investigated. A second study determined the effects of metabolic - related production diseases on feeding behaviour and feed intake. The high correlation between feeding behaviour characteristics such as meal duration suggests that measuring the time spend eating could be used to estimate the feed intake. Moreover the monitoring of feeding behaviour might be helpful to detect the cows` risk for metabolic – related production diseases at an early stage.
