The experiment was carried out to investigate the effect of deficiency of parotid saliva on eating and ruminating behaviour in sheep. One Japanese Corridale female sheep weighing 35kg was used in this experiment. Sheep was given a diet of crushed alfalfa hay cube at a level of 1% of body weight as dry matter, twicw daily. Eating and ruminating behaviour were measured before and after section of the both parotid ducts.
Section of the parotid ducts markedly increased the time spent eating Con sequently eating rate decreased to 60% as compared with the value before section.
Daily time spent ruminating or the number of rumination periods remained unchanged but the number of regurgitated boli per day was reduced by 58% after section of the parotid ducts．The cyclic rate, expressed as the average time between successive regurgitations, was prolonged in connection with the reduced number of boli. And also, the number of chews to each bolus and the bolus time increased to about 80% as compared with the value before section.
After section of ducts, digestibility of each component in the diet did not changed by comparison with the value before section, except the slight increment in the digestibility of crude fiber.