A greater understanding of the factors determining short-term feed intake under grazing and TMR (total mixed ration) feeding conditions would increase our knowledge of short-term mechanism regulating dry matter intake. Thus, multiparous Holstein cows (n = 14 cows; DIM = 147.8 ± 12.7; BW = 560 ± 27.1 kg; BCS = 2.8 ± 0.2; milk yield = 28.9 ± 3.3 kg) were used to assess the effect of type of diet on short-term feed intake during the first a.m. meal event. Cows were in a randomized block design assigned to 2 treatments: (PAS) grazing on a vegetative oat pasture (herbage allowance = 45 kg DM/cow/day; DM = 38%, NEL = 1.56 Mcal/kgDM) or (TMR) ad libitum TMR (70:30 forage to concentrate ratio, as-fed basis; DM = 60%, NEL = 1.73 Mcal/kgDM) in confinement. Cows were milked twice daily and access time to each diet was 16 h. The experiment lasted 20 d (15 d of adaptation and 5 d of measurements). Short-term feed intake was measured by weighing cows before and after grazing with correction for insensible weight loss in PAS and as the difference between feed offered and refused in TMR. The intake rate was calculated by dividing short-term feed intake by the time spent in the first a.m. meal event. Data were analyzed using a mixed model including treatment as fixed effect and block as a random effect. The short-term intake, (expressed as kgDM) and short-term energy intake (expressed as a proportion of estimated NEL requirements; NRC 2001) were greater (P < 0.001) for PAS than TMR cows (6.88 vs. 4.25 ± 0.48 kgDM and 0.36 vs. 0.22 ± 0.19, respectively). Time spent in the first a.m. meal event tended (P = 0.06) to be greater and intake rate was greater (P < 0.001) also for PAS than TMR cows (95.3 vs. 74.2 ± 7 min and 56.7 vs. 71.3 ± 0.12 gDM/min, respectively). The results indicate that, depending on diet type, cows used different strategies in the first a.m. meal event, which could be associated with both different dietary signals and cow energy requirements.